Young players drove Treaty over the line
I had a small investment in the game, too, because the result could have heavily impacted on the Clare footballers’ fate in Cusack Park. Cork needed to get a win or a draw to keep Clare up.
With 59 minutes gone, Paul Kerrigan kicked a beautiful point off his left foot to put Cork ahead by 1-10 to 0-10. A cheer went up. A father and his young son were sitting behind me.
The young fella must have been reading the programme. Once he heard the commotion, he lifted his head and said: ‘Is it over Dad?’ The father got a fit of laughing. So did everyone around us.
Down went on to kick the next three points to save themselves, but that story nearly set the tone for what was to come in the hurling. The place was flat.
The match was flat, even though the scoreline may have made it look otherwise.
It was just a funny kind of a game. There was a row right at the end of the match. Shane Dowling got involved with someone.
He was fired out over the line. There was some roaring and shouting, but that was in injury-time. I said to myself: ‘Why are Cork only getting excited now?’
When Mark Coleman got a great point after 18 minutes, I wrote it down on my notepad, not to record the quality of the score, but to mark the first real cheer of the day. I suppose the depression of the football match beforehand hadn’t helped the home supporters, but you’d still have expected more hype in the ground.
Limerick were full value for the win. They were only level at half-time when they could have been five points ahead.
The manner of the win was even better: The way they closed out the match, especially when Cork drew level with six minutes to go and looked set to kick on. To make it better, it was the young Limerick players who drove the team over the line.
Cian Lynch is really the poster-boy for that generation and he was brilliant. When the clock was ticking down and Daniel Kearney appeared set to reduce the deficit to one point, Lynch made a superb intervention to deny him the chance. It also encapsulated much of the mood of the match; Limerick always seemed that fraction ahead, both in mind and body.
Gearoid Hegarty, another one of Limerick’s young guns, had a big game. He was a consistent outlet for Nickie Quaid on puck-outs, but Limerick always seemed to have Cork’s number in the air.
Both teams set up with two inside in the full-forward line. For the very first score, Patrick Horgan jinked Richie McCarthy inside out. It looked like it was going to be a long afternoon for Richie, but he, Richie English, and Mikey Casey shut down that threat impressively.
Casey was out in front of Alan Cadogan for four balls, never allowing him the opportunity to win possession and burn Casey in the process. He used the possession well too.
Limerick also ran their bench well. John Fitzgibbon, Pat Ryan, Barry Nash, and Gavin O’Mahoney all contributed. Limerick looked to have more strength in depth, but they had more of a goal threat throughout, as well.
Hegarty and Kyle Hayes were alternating in the full-forward line, with David Dempsey and Graeme Mulcahy either feeding off, or making runs towards, Hegarty.
At all times, it looked like Limerick were just one handpass away from getting through for a goal. That’s what happened for Dempsey’s goal; Hegarty skinned his man before popping it out to the Na Piarsaigh man. Hayes was in another time, but he overcooked the pass.
From what I saw yesterday, you’d have to worry about what Tipperary’s full-forward line could do to that Cork full-back line in seven weeks’ time in Thurles. Lynch was playing deep, but it took Cork a long time to get a handle on him. Diarmuid Byrnes also needs to tailor his long-range shooting, but if he had been more accurate, Limerick could have been much further ahead at the end.
Cork never really got going. Apart from Seamus Harnedy, Cork had very few options for an out-ball. There was a lot of short-passing. At one stage, they strung a sequence of short passes, from wing-back to corner-back, to Anthony Nash, who pinged a ball for Cadogan, who was fouled by Casey.
It produced an end-result, but will that work against an aggressive and strong Tipp team eager to hunt Cork down?
The biggest result of the weekend was for Wexford’s win in Nowlan Park. It will no doubt have wounded the beast for their probable championship meeting in June, but fair play to Wexford. To win down there in front of 15,000 is invaluable. I always felt with Dublin that there was never a stage when we couldn’t afford to be going well. You can’t buy that feel-good factor. Fair play to Davy, he has set Vinegar Hill alight again.
In Ennis, meanwhile, Clare produced the goods in the second 35 minutes to get the most vital result of the day.
Championship is always championship, but some results in April still feel like those eternal summer Sundays.
