Danger day for champions
Cork will have spent the past three weeks digesting the lessons from the Munster final and will for the last two weeks geared themselves specifically for the challenge from the Mourne men. But because Down are one of the most instinctive football teams around these days, it makes them very hard to second guess. They are the ultimate hot and cold county and as such, we really don’t know what to expect from them at Croke Park this evening. This game is fraught with danger for Cork and there are no real form-lines to study in Down’s wins over Clare, Leitrim and Antrim.
Returning to the entrails of last year’s final could be pointless. Games are often studied only when they start to go wrong. The end of things is the moment when people start to understand them: and only when they are understood do we begin to realise what has been lost. We know that much in Kerry from all the finals we’ve lost and I’m sure Down know it from their first ever All Ireland loss last year. That understanding comes too late for many because things move on and team dynamics change.
Very few teams get the opportunity that Down are getting this evening, however. After the depths of ten months ago, they are presented with a chance to soar once again against the All Ireland champions. This evening for Down is going to be about tradition, experience, audacity and adrenalin. It’s quite a prospect.
Cork, in the business of rehabilitation after Killarney, are going to have to remind themselves of what made them champions last autumn against a team who appeared to have lost their mojo for much of this summer. Down, wrestling with issues of style and temperament since the end of May, are presented with a chance to settle up for last September. Throw in the added bonus of getting a game in Croke Park under their belts for whichever team advances to the All-Ireland quarter-final, and the picture becomes clear - the team that emerges from this scrap is going to have serious momentum heading into August weekend.
Midfield will be fascinating. It is widely accepted that this was the one area in which Down were obliterated against Cork last September and the breaking ball statistics (23-9 in favour of the Rebels) speaks volumes. Alan Quirke, whose short kick-outs were so heavily criticised in the aftermath of the Munster final is likely to change tack this time but to burden Quirke with all of Cork’s midfield failings is misguided and unfair.
Quirke, I have no doubt carried out his instructions to the absolute limits of their possibilities against Kerry but he cannot be the scapegoat for some really poor distribution and decision making by Cork’s numbers 5-9. Those same people who are criticising Quirke now are ignoring his contribution to the All-Ireland last September. The midfield problems Down experienced in the All-Ireland were as a direct result of Quirke out-thinking Down. We all knew beforehand that the Down midfielders were never going to be as good at getting clean ball as their Cork counterparts. But that hadn’t been a problem to Down up to then as they were more than adequate at securing the breaking ball with Hughes and Poland hustling all year to pick up those breaks.
Ahead of the final Cork would’ve seen this and neutralised the Down tactic by splitting their midfield wide open. Instead of chipping the ball to a morass of bodies, with half-backs and half-forwards looking for scraps underneath, Cork asked both midfielders to play wide and create a huge space between them. This had the effect of isolating Kalum King on Aidan Walsh Walsh and Peter Fitzpatrick on Nicholas Murphy for the second half. Down couldn’t swarm the catcher and Cork’s superior aerial power won out. If Hughes and Poland went towards Walsh, Quirke would hit it to Murphy and vice versa. It was a simple ploy that Down couldn’t counteract and Quirke’s role in it was crucial.
Things have moved on and it is worth noting the difference in midfield personnel since last September. Down started against Antrim last week with former wing-back Declan Rooney partnering King at midfield and Fitzpatrick coming in off the bench for King late in the game. All of this while the best midfielder in the county (Ambrose Rodgers) is slowly getting back to championship fitness after injury and while the second best midfielder in the county (Dan Gordon) is fast becoming a really reliable inter-county full-back. Gordon’s positioning is a classic catch-22 situation for the Down management. Do you sacrifice possession at midfield for stability at the back or do you go gung-ho to win midfield and hope that your lack of physicality at full back doesn’t get exposed? What worked against Kerry and Kieran Donaghy in 2010 didn’t work against Cork and Donncha O Connor in 2010 and mightn’t necessarily work in 2011.
Because of injury, Cork haven’t been able to call on Nicholas Murphy lately and his loss has been stultifying. Aidan Walsh’s meteoric rise has shown signs of flat-lining with an under-par showing in the All Ireland U21 semi-final against Galway and a less than clever first half against Kerry at the start of the month. Cork’s strength-in-depth at centrefield in 2010 was reflected in the manner in which five different players were used in the final. After half an hour on the field, Murphy was injured and replaced by Derek Kavanagh and within minutes he required a blood replacement, Fintan Goold. For different reasons, neither Kavanagh, Murphy nor Goold are available as out and out midfielders this time, leaving Alan O Connor as the only player with form in the area. The importance of a big performance from Aidan Walsh doesn’t need further highlighting.
There are so many warning signs flashing ahead of this game for Cork that we have to assume they will have taken heed. They will know that the tackling by their forwards in the first half in Killarney simply wasn’t good enough. They will know too that it shouldn’t take their talisman, Graham Canty as long again to get under the skin of the game. The quality of their kick-passing will have to improve and their half backs will have to get back to bursting out of defence at pace rather than dithering and leaning into the tackler looking for frees as O Leary, Kissane and Miskella have been doing. Cork’s best player, Michael Shields is wasted on marking duties (unless it’s the Gooch in the corner) and what his team will gain in negating Coulter as he did in last year’s final, they will lose in ambition and ability further out the field.
In the final analysis we must ask ourselves a few simple questions. Questions like, have Down any defender to track Paul Kerrigan’s runs when the game opens up? Or have Down found anybody since this year’s league encounter between the sides when Cork outscored the Ulster side 2-4 to 0-1 in the last 20 minutes and had no answer to Daniel Goulding as he ran riot in the first half with seven points from play and frees? Is Marty Clarke’s influence as pronounced as it was this time last year? Are Down’s new players blooded during league and qualifier games (Laverty, Mooney, McArdle and Brannigan) going to take Croke Park by storm or is Patrick Kelly going to have his influence diminished by a Down half-back as it was three weeks ago by Kerry? The answer to all the above questions is “no”. This “no” affirms the existence of a borderline in the Rebels’ season. They can and will push on.
