Experience won it for Tipp
All through, Tipp’s forwards held the ball that extra second longer, which invariably meant they took the correct option. Noel McGrath’s clinical goal in the 46th minute was the key play in the game and was all about experience. The running of Lar Corbett onto a through ball from John O’Brien as well as the original inviting pass from ‘Bonner’ Maher all showed experience.
McGrath had taken the optimum position to receive the pass from Corbett, who had fixed the defender by running straight before offloading at the perfect time.
Brendan Cummins, Tipp’s most experienced player, made sure that he slowed the game down as the clock wound down, taking vital extra seconds as he took frees and puck-outs.
The score, with over nine minutes left, was Tipp 1-22 to Cork’s 0-22. Tipp had finished their scoring and Cork added two points to bring the gap to the minimum.
Nine minutes seemed ample time for Cork to draw level but the ball was in play for only three minutes and 20 seconds of that nine minutes, and Cork contributed to their own downfall by spending a long time over a free and a sideline in this period.
That inexperience was seen elsewhere. On 45 minutes Conor Lehane was clearly fouled by Conor O’Mahony, who was subsequently booked, but Lehane ran on into further traffic and lost the ball. Scores were at a premium at that stage and a more experienced player would have gone down, forcing referee Brian Gavin to give a free — particularly as nothing else was on.
Luke O’Farrell’s hurley was held by Michael Cahill in the dying minutes — if O’Farrell had stopped he might have won a free but he elected to play on and was hooked, with Cian McCarthy free in a supporting position.
The Cork forwards put in a huge defensive effort in the first half and they had the Tipp insider backs in trouble when they ran at them. But in that final nine minutes too many speculative balls were sent into the attack.
Shorter deliveries linking the play from defence to attack would have provided opportunities to the inside line to run at their markers. Cork’s penultimate point showed this — Jamie Coughlan picked up a stray pass from Padraic Maher and moved the ball on with a short pass to Cian McCarthy, who was then able to deliver the perfect 30-metre pass to Luke O’Farrell, who was fouled.
Anyone looking at Euro 2012 on RTÉ will be familiar with the pundits’ phrase, ‘mistakes are punished at this level’. The Tipp half-forwards were very good on Sunday at pouncing on mistakes.
With the game level Eoin Cadogan was severely pressurised near the sideline — the simple play was to pop the ball back to Brian Murphy, who was in a perfect supporting position, but Cadogan elected to clear and Pa Bourke (who had an excellent game) picked up the clearance and hit a fine point.
A minute later William Egan took the ball into contact but lost it and the end result was another point (for Noel McGrath).
This was due to inexperience and eliminating little mistakes will be part of the growing process for this Cork team, who gave Sunday their best shot.
The aforementioned Bourke and ‘Bonner’ Maher at centre-forward were particular thorns in Cork’s side. They used the ball very well in a change of tactic from Tipp’s first round game, by looking inside when in possession and finding a colleague in space with shorter passes.
Maher’s workrate is amazing and he fought incredibly hard for all the breaking ball, winning plenty of same on the ground — a Tipp version of Richie McCaw. He ran directly at the defence, which is very difficult to stop and he used the ball well.
The introduction of Lar Corbett also had a major effect and his fingerprints were all over a scoring tally of 1-3 of Tipp’s second-half total of 1-8.
