Thurles appetiser foretells a summer of slaughter
Galway and Cork hammered out half an entertaining league final yesterday in Thurles, with the westerners well worth their eight-point win. Was it championship fare? Maybe for a time in the first half, but don’t sue under the Trades Description Act. The league is the league.
The game was played at 7pm, as you all know well, and for the record, 14,200 attended. To arrive at an estimate as to how that figure was affected by the GAA’s decision to stage the decider in the evening would require mastery of mathematical principles familiar only to the chief loan officer with Anglo Irish Bank.
About the only material difference between a game at four and a game at seven seemed to us to be the lighting – an odd mix of the natural and the man-made, giving a hyper-sharp definition to the players.
Whatever the lighting scheme Galway impressed, particularly up front, with a mixture of physical presence – Donnellan, Tannian and Canning would form a formidable back row in what custom dictates we refer to as The Other Code – and raw pace, most visible in Damien Hayes’ opening goal.
Maximising the return from Hayes has challenged more Galway managers than John McIntyre – his predecessor, Ger Loughnane, experimented with Hayes at midfield – but a free role at wing-forward suited him yesterday.
Maximising the return from Joe Canning is a different challenge, though the equation in which x (the amount of ball he gets) and y (the scores he gets) are very similar.
Eoin Dillon, a new member of the increasingly inclusive club of Cork full-backs of that name, trotted in to mind Canning, and for 20 minutes or so contradicted the general view that the duel would be as competitive as Lions v Christians in the Colosseum (AD 100, throw-in time unknown).
However, some birds aren’t meant to be caged. In five minutes Canning gathered 1-2 and the goal might as well have come with a trademark: he gathered the ball, surfed a couple of challenges and stitched his shot into the corner.
At the other end Galway were strong and combative, reading the breaking ball well. They were opened up by Cathal Naughton’s direct run for goal but apart from some half-chances and slight glimpses offered to the opposition, by and large they kept their shape and defended well.
The second half didn’t replicate the fizz and zip of the first. Cork were in the market for a goal to cause western uncertainty but Galway weren’t selling. When Pat Horgan’s penalty was deflected over the bar by ‘keeper Colm Callanan there was the sense of an opportunity missed, and Galway surged downfield and rattled off three points in a row.
There was much to admire in Galway’s performance. Game management was a term much used in the big games in other sports this weekend, but Galway didn’t do too badly at that lark in Thurles. Students of the ebb and flow of competition would have observed Galway players picking up slight knocks when Cork sniffed some momentum, for instance.
On the basis of what we saw yesterday in the Division 2 final, which Wexford won, edging out Clare 1-16 to 2-9, Galway should have too much for the Slaneysiders in their Leinster Championship opening. Later in the year, however, they may find that a lust for contact will have to be balanced by better shot selection after a baker’s dozen of second-half wides.
Cork boss Denis Walsh has different challenges. A spring of narrow victories has given way to an emphatic early-summer reversal, and he’ll be disappointed with the return from his forwards. After a decade of point-taking his attackers were primed for goal yesterday but only raised one green flag, while the fears he expressed about opposing defenders savouring the relative lack of mobility of two big men were realised in the second half.
At times after the break his defence looked overrun, with Galway players pouring through, onto popped passes, in a way that was reminiscent of Cork circa 2003-6.
As an appetiser for the high summer, not bad. But what were we really looking for?
A new version of Lady Gregory’s Tales of the Fianna puts it this way: “Then the creatures of the high air answered to the battle, and the sea chattered of the losses, and the waves gave heavy shouts, and the water-beasts roared, and the rough hills creaked, and the woods trembled, and the grey stones cried out, and the wind sobbed, and the earth shook, foretelling the slaughter.”
That’s the Championship. It’s almost here.
* Note: Not all conflict between Cork and Galway: a charity cycle between the two cities is on this weekend in aid of Brainwave, the Irish epilepsy charity. www.mycharity.ie/event/tourdegaggs for more information.
* michael.moynihan@examiner.ie
Twitter: MikeMoynihanEx.
