Fogarty Forum: Another Clare lesson in cuteness will hurt Cork
PLAN OF ATTACK: Cork senior hurling manager, Pat Ryan, addresses the media at the county's press night at SuperValu Pairc Ui Chaoimh. Picture: Jim Coughlan.
Lessons. Often regarded as euphemisms for defeats but more to do with the education that comes with losing.
Clare have been providing teachings to Cork these last three championships. In a tactical sense, Pat Ryan has spoken about how Cork were caught out by the speed of theirs restarts in Ennis last year. Emphasising their full-backs push out as soon as a ball is struck towards Patrick Collins’ goal so as to allow the fast restart, they have learned by replication.
Where they don’t seem to have heeded the schoolings from Clare is in the subject of cuteness. In that game in Cusack Park, Clare led by a point as the clock turned crimson red in additional time when Tony Kelly dragged down Ger Millerick by the shorts. Tim O’Mahony’s shoulder on Kelly was tame but the Clare captain’s theatrical fall suggested he had been dunted, the linesman was convinced and the free became a throw-in.
Almost 12 months later and Cork were falling for it hook, line and sinker again. We talk not of Shane O’Donnell making a meal of Seán O’Donoghue’s shoulder. O’Donnell surely did not and the Cork captain only had himself to blame for picking up a second yellow card for an unnecessary shoulder. But as O’Mahony showed sometimes Cork can’t help themselves.
No, what we mean is what happened late in normal time when David Reidy was cuteness personified. Patrick Horgan had just brought Cork to within three points and Reidy, having lost his hurley in dispossessing Ciarán Joyce, dribbled the ball to the corner and then kicked it out of play.
Bouncing back to him off the advertising hoard, he booted the sliotar again, this time down the North Stand/Blackrock End tunnel, to make it difficult for Cork to take the sideline cut quickly.
As Mark Coleman approached him to give a shoulder for his act of gamesmanship, Reidy grabbed him and a melee ensued. Collins pulled Aidan McCarthy to the ground as he grappled with Robert Downey and then checked the fabric quality of Shane O’Donnell’s jersey. Coleman came back for more, pulling the back of McCarthy’s top.
From the time the ball went out of play to it being put back in play, one minute and 37 seconds elapsed. Referee James Owens appeared to compensate for it in additional time but the momentum from Horgan’s goal had been arrested as Clare scored the next two points and eventually prevailed.
Cork had been reeled in again and speaking later Eoin Cadogan felt they had to become wiser. “The best teams always find a way whether that be football or hurling,” he said. “There is a learning from that Clare game in the sense of having game-smarts when it matters most. It doesn’t always have to be a negative tactic.” As an example, Cadogan cited Patrick Horgan in the next game against Limerick not going for a point from the free after his late penalty goal put Cork ahead. Instead, he sprayed the ball down the line to Brian Hayes for an easier score.
There is no question Cork have become a tougher, more physical sort. Their speed of foot and thought won them the games against Limerick this season but without conditioning to withstand the brawn of the champions it wouldn’t have amounted to a victory.
In the All-Ireland final media event, Ryan spoke of its importance. “We have made it a real focus that fellas have to be doing it and have to get stronger. It’s not even getting stronger, it just gives you more confidence and makes you more injury secure. We have way less injuries this year because fellas are in much better shape and have that strength put on. They’re getting more confidence in themselves because of it.”
However, being street-wise is another layer that Cork, unlike Clare, haven’t yet managed to add to their resume. And it’s not as if O’Donoghue (28), Coleman (26) and O’Mahony (27) haven’t been playing inter-county hurling long enough to be sucked into becoming reactionists.
That long-held belief over a lot of these last 19 years, that Cork’s best chances of victory lie with pedantic referees, is one they must move away from if they are to end the famine.
Johnny Murphy has no experience of refereeing Cork this year and has been involved in two championship games that Clare have won convincingly (v Tipperary and Wexford). He was also man in the middle when Clare edged the cracker in Ennis last year and cancelled the free conceded by Kelly. Yet the perception holds that he suits Cork as he is more of a stickler on fouls than other officials.
It's not to anybody other than those wearing red that Cork must look for help this Sunday. To quote the bard Ian McCulloch, “A man must be his own saviour.”
john.fogarty@examiner.ie
With sharp journalist instincts, Jason O’Connor of “Kerry’s Eye” on Saturday received the answer he was looking for from his namesake Jack without asking directly the Kerry manager would he be remaining on for a fourth season.
Will you be taking time to consider things came the query. “Are you trying to retire me, Jason?” smiled O’Connor. “Ah, sure we don’t know. This management has another year in its contract or whatever so we’ll hopefully see that out.” O’Connor’s winter will be brutally long – the criticism will be sharp when the golden age of minors hasn’t transferred to the senior stakes and David Clifford is in danger of becoming a Maurice Fitzgerald, a star with too few medals – but he has weathered five of them before.
What he has also done, however, is step away even when he has the support of county board executives as he does now. Everyone remembers how he finished up with Kildare in 2021 with one season remaining in his agreement. After losing the 2012 All-Ireland quarter-final to Kerry, the county board tried in vain for him to remain on in ’13 for the last year of a term.
Retirements will be anticipated. Stephen O’Brien and Paul Geaney might find it difficult to commit to another season even if another veteran Paul Murphy should be able to stay on. The hope will be the season’s experience for Cillian Burke and Seán O’Brien will bring them on to really challenge for regular starts but Kerry played within themselves so much this year that everything has to be on the table for O’Connor in assessing 2025.
It might be a stretch for Paddy Tally to stick around for a fourth year. Although they have tried before, Kerry don’t really do succession plans but does O’Connor bring in somebody the executive believes can follow him or is there already one there in either Diarmuid Murphy or Mike Quirke?
O’Connor has plenty of time to think. Too much for his own liking he might argue, but he should put it to good use.
Kieran McGeeney has a habit of following Pádraic Joyce and by that we don’t just mean as a marker in their playing days.
A year after Joyce lifted the Sam Maguire Cup in 2001, the Armagh manager was doing the same as leader of his county. A year after the Galway boss was appointed skipper of the International Rules team in 2005 for the second time, McGeeney was selected to captain the country.
Might we be led to believe that McGeeney will have to wait until 2025 to replicate Joyce as an All-Ireland winning manager? Joyce does seem to have a nose for these things. When the counties drew their All-Ireland SFC round game in Sligo last month, he sent a message that night to his old pal.
He mentioned it on Sunday when he was asked if he believed both Galway and Armagh would end up in the final following their stalemate in Markievicz Park. “Well, if you ask Kieran McGeeney next week what was texted to him that night, that will answer the question for you.” Joyce, of course, famously vowed to be an All-Ireland winner in 1998 when as a 20-year-old student in Tralee RTC he watched on as the Sam Maguire Cup was paraded around the town on an open deck bus in September 1997.
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