If you want to match Cats, you’ve got to match their attitude
I think it will be hotter than that!
Also, to any Kilkenny supporter who’s rushing back to Nowlan Park after this game — don’t bother, the real Boss will still be in Semple Stadium.
One thing I’ve noticed over the years on my trips to Cork and Kilkenny is the regard each has for the other and, because of that, each has also always had a huge fear of the other.
This is going to be a game to savour between two great traditional hurling counties.
I spoke of Joe Canning being on his own in Galway’s Leinster final loss to Dublin; Cork suffered almost the same problem in their loss against Limerick in the Munster final.
Only two players played to their potential that day — Shane O’Neill in the backs, Patrick Horgan in the forwards — and of course we all know how the latter’s day was shortened by an over-zealous referee.
This is a different venue, a different game. Whatever it is about the Gaelic Grounds, Cork rarely seem to get it right there, but how they love to play in Thurles – in fact they don’t play, they perform.
Of course, to perform at this level also involves breaking the pain barrier. The Cork forwards didn’t do that against Limerick. If they’re to beat Kilkenny they’ll have to because this is as fine a defence as you’ll see in hurling.
It’s not like Cork forwards to be shy; my experience of them is that no matter their size, they were always bould at least. They’re going to need that, they’re going to have to play a lot nearer the edge then they’ve been up to now. They have the skill, and great skill at that, but they’re going to have to become a lot more forceful with and without the ball. Too often and too easy the ball comes back out of that area, which is putting their own defence under pressure. I’m looking to see Horgan and Harnedy, Coughlan and Cronin, Lehane and Luke O’Farrell working a lot harder tomorrow; fight for every ball, especially the ball they have no right to win – that’s the greatest of all.
To Kilkenny, and everything I said about Cork, I say the opposite here. If ever there was a team that will fight it’s Kilkenny, every player for every ball. They’re the never-never team, never give up, never give in.
Cast your mind back to the end of regular time in the drawn game against Waterford. Kilkenny had that match won, Matthew Ruth hitting what would have been the winning point, but it wasn’t allowed because the final whistle had just gone. Did it faze them? Not a bit. They went to the dressing room, got their heads right again, came out and tore into Waterford and drove on to win.
Kilkenny too have the skill but what they also have is the right attitude – if you want to match Kilkenny, you’ve got to match that attitude first. Look at guys like Richie Power and Richie Hogan stepping forward now, look at how Eoin Larkin is leading the team from midfield, look at Jackie Tyrrell, Tommy, JJ, Brian Hogan, at Paul Murphy, at the Fennelly brothers whether starting or coming on.
It’s copybook attitude, an example to any team in any sport.
A winner? There’ll be a backlash in Cork after the Munster final; it won’t be enough.
I’m delighted to see Patrick Horgan, pictured, lining out for Cork tomorrow but like many others I felt he should not have been red carded in the Munster final.
The morning after the game I expressed an opinion in these pages that the Munster Council should have had a referee from within the province to take charge of the showpiece rather than James McGrath from Westmeath.
I got a call later from the Munster Council informing me that the selection of the match official isn’t their call.
But what sense does that make? If the Munster Council can be trusted to organise everything else around that day, then surely they can also be trusted to appoint a referee capable of handling not just the match, but the occasion.
The one good thing that has come from this is the honesty of Limerick’s Paudie O’Brien. We know about the kind of guys who do their best to get an opponent sent off but not alone did Paudie go on the record as saying that the red card was undeserved, he wrote a letter to the Central Hearings Committee expressing that view. I know James McGrath applied the letter of the law but talking to a well-known referee of my acquaintance, I said to him that common-sense should have applied. His reply? “Common-sense isn’t in the rule-book!”
Maybe it’s time that it was put there.
