Anthony Daly: Wins for Cork and Clare means it was a worrying weekend for Leinster hurling
Cork's Diarmuid Healy with Eoin Burke of Offaly. Picture: INPHO/Tom O'Hanlon
Even now, 34 years on, I still vividly recall the giddiness and excitement I felt going to the 1992 All-Ireland football semi-final between Clare and Dublin. It was completely unchartered territory for the footballers but also alien territory for any Clare supporters. The Clare hordes from every nook and cranny of the county descended on Dublin that weekend like the Scottish Tartan Army took over Boston last week.
Clare just didn’t reach All-Ireland semi-finals, in any grade. The minor hurlers had been there twice, in 1981 and 1989, but nobody expected to be going there following the seniors. I had already three years senior experience but I made the absolute most of the footballers’ visit to Croke Park in 1992 because I never expected to see that stage as a player.
If somebody had said back then that I would captain a Clare team in four All-Ireland semi-finals in five years later in that decade, I’d have thought they had lost the run of themselves. They were halcyon days that we thought we’d never see again in Clare. But, thankfully, we have. On Sunday week, Clare will contest a fourth All-Ireland semi-final in five seasons.
It’s a golden time again for Clare hurling. And yet, as we were strolling into the last four in the closing minutes of Saturday’s All-Ireland quarter-final against Dublin, that was the last thing on every Clare supporter’s mind as David Reidy lay prone on the Thurles pitch with a phalanx of medical personnel around him.
Fair play to John Hetherton for instantly spotting the distress David was in and getting down over him and turning him into the recovery position before Shane O’Donnell arrived on the scene. They knew that David was in trouble but it was extremely worrying when we all saw the Clare, Dublin and stadium doctors rushing in with such haste. You know that’s a red flag.
Everyone in the stadium was anxious before we could see some movement from David. Thankfully, he was talking before he left the ground. Nobody wants to see something like happen to anybody but David is a really popular figure in the panel, and around the county. He has been on and off the team but he never whinges and always comes on and does his job.
Read More
Brendan Kenny did not mean to do the damage he did. I’m sure he is very cut up about it all because he certainly isn’t that type of a player. But it was still a reckless challenge and there has to be a clampdown on those type of head-high tackles. It was a split-second decision but players have to take more responsibility.
The match was already over but nobody had any interest in the rest of it after witnessing such a distressing sight.
It was job done for Clare but I was extremely worried after half-time when a Donal Burke score reduced the margin to one point. Dublin had all the momentum, while Clare hadn’t scored for 15 minutes.
Clare finally woke up and kicked on but they were still stumbling for much of that second half when Dublin were able to create so many goalscoring chances. They engineered seven for a finish. It was no surprise that Eibhear Quilligan was selected as man-of-the-match. Of his seven saves, five were top class.
Eibhear’s puckouts were better too, but he had far more options, and there was far better movement, than against Cork and Limerick.
Clare kept a clean sheet but that doesn’t disguise the issues. Adam Hogan did better on Ronan Hayes when he was switched on to him, while Conor Leen did well when he came on, but the defence were still far too open again. Clare coughed up too many chances by not shutting down space, they conceded too many scoreable frees, while this tendency to drift and switch off in games will be ruthlessly punished by Limerick.
There were positives. Seán Rynne and Niall O’Farrell were outstanding while Shane O’Donnell had his best game since the Waterford match. But Clare will need every single player to raise their performance by another few levels to have any chance of reaching another final.
It's a disappointing end to the season for the Dubs, especially when they were unbeaten prior to the Leinster final. But you can’t miss that amount of goal chances and expect to get away with it. They just need to become more clinical and to develop their attacking play more. I could understand after the Leinster final why they were more defensive but you’re not going to beat the top teams either unless you commit more bodies to the attack.
Out of curiosity at half-time yesterday, I googled the 1993 Munster final, just to see what the score was at half-time. Tipperary eventually beat us by 18 points but the score was far more respectable than I remembered – we were down 1-7 to 2-14.
I’ll never forget the discussion at half time that day about seeking respect in the second half. It was if we’d been tarred and feathered and were heading for the gallows. And we were only down ten points – 13 less than what Offaly were trailing Cork at the break yesterday.
Cork can do that to you but I just couldn’t understand Offaly’s decision to play against the breeze after winning the toss. After getting a whipping from Clare in a challenge game two weeks earlier, you’d have thought the last thing Offaly needed was to hand Cork any advantage. And it didn’t take Cork long to make the most of it.
Moreover, a strong Cork start instantly got the massive Cork crowd revved up, which made the atmosphere even more intimidating for an Offaly side just not used to such a massive occasion. You just have to give it up to the Cork supporters the way they just follow this team like a besotted army.
Everybody knew that Cork would win but I was a little disappointed that Offaly made it so easy, especially in the first half. It just underlined the massive gulf that exists now between the elite teams and the chasing pack.
I was impressed by facets of Cork's play. It was a surprise that Alan Walsh was selected ahead of William Buckley but Alan justified his selection with 2-1 from play.
I thought Cork showed a smart and savvy tactical tweak by going with two big men in the full-forward line alongside another big man, Alan Connolly. Ben Conneely has had an excellent year for Offaly but Cork knew that he’d have enough of a job dealing with Brian Hayes. Adding Walsh into the mix stirred up a concoction that blew up in Offaly face.
Offaly just weren’t physically or mentally ready. They had nine starters under 22 and the gulf in physique and body composition was stark.
And Cork just rolled over them.
It was another worrying weekend for Leinster hurling. The most concerning aspect of how far the province has fallen in standards compared to Munster was evident in the minor and U20 championships. Galway were provincial champions in both grades but Clare hammered their U20s and Limerick dismantled their minors. Cork, who didn’t even reach the Munster final, hammered the Kilkenny minors by 12 points.
I know this might sound localised and biased but the Clare minors were hammered by Cork by 40 points in 2021 and it mobilised good people in the county into making sure that never happened again. It certainly has not. Clare have won an All-Ireland minor and U20 in the intervening years. Clare also contested last year’s All-Ireland minor final. And the county are now in a fourth All-Ireland senior semi-final in five years.
For decades, we could only dream of times like this, but we made it happen. Every county needs help. But you have to help yourself first. And if counties need that help, they have to demand it, from both inside and outside.
Finally, Saturday again underlined just how crazy the black-card rule is, especially the technicalities around it. The rule constitutes three infractions; pulling down an opponent; tripping an opponent with the hands, arm, leg, foot, or hurley; using the hurley in a careless manner. The key distinction between a black card in hurling compared to football is how it is directly tied into denying a goalscoring opportunity.
But what about pulling the hurley out of a player’s hand when he is straight through on goal, as Darragh Lohan did to Ronan Hayes just before half-time? Is that not more clearcut than any of the other infractions?
Eibhear did make a great save from a Hayes kicked shot. But Hayeso would surely have scored if he had a hurley in his hand. Mark Rodgers was also blatantly pulled back by Paddy Smyth just as he was about to pull the trigger in the second half but there was no black card because Mark didn’t go to ground and he still got off the shot, which Eddie Gibbons saved.
We could change the football rules almost every week last year, but this rule really needs to be revisited now before next year. Because I just don’t think it’s working as well as it needs to.
A collection of the latest sports news, reports and analysis from Cork.
