Cork 'must end goal famine to beat Tipp'

JOHN ALLEN'S honesty is refreshing. The Cork hurling selector is prepared to admit that a lack of goals has inhibited the team's progress in this year's championship.

He also admits that this has as good as cost them their title in last Sunday week's Munster final against Waterford. But he believes an improvement in this sector could be the deciding factor in beating Tipperary in Fitzgerald Stadium tomorrow (4.15pm) and going into the draw on Sunday for the All-Ireland quarter-finals. Allen, a former St Finbarr's and Cork dual player, is loud in his praise of team manager Donal O'Grady. "While he has come in for a lot of criticism, I must say - and I said it before - his work ethic is second to nobody's as a coach and as a professional, organised person. He is the best I have seen,'' he says.

"Donal certainly deserves a lot of credit for bringing people from the (players') strike of the winter before last up to being in an All-Ireland final last year and playing in a classic Munster final this year.''

The big question Cork supporters have been asking for the last week is whether or not this team can learn enough from the defeat in Thurles and emerge a stronger unit. Of course, they will wonder if mistakes will again be made on the sideline, but that's another matter.

In John Allen's view, it has been difficult at an individual level for players to come to terms with the fact that they lost the Munster final. "We gave them a break from the Sunday of the match to Wednesday and training that night was very positive and very upbeat. Then we had a meeting on Thursday night with all the players.

"You could say it's a bit like professional players who are training very hard, in that when you lose one match you have to look forward to the next game and do the business. That's the way it is for us. I will say, fellows are very focused and very much up for this game.''

He readily accepts that there are lessons to be learned from the game with Waterford - one of the more obvious ones being that the forwards didn't fully capitalise on their scoring chances. "We probably could have got two goals in the first half. Instead of scoring 1-14, we could maybe have had 4-10 scored. We did have goal chances. Possibly that was the difference - that we didn't take the goal chances. And when you look back at our two championship games (the first being against Limerick), we got two very fortunate goals.''

Allen reckons that if their team could manage a goal or two at least in each game, they'd be very difficult to beat. "Where we did last year get a good few goals, it's a little bit worrying that we haven't scored goals fluently this year,'' he stated.

Tipperary crashed out of the Munster championship at the semi-final stage because their attack was weak and they didn't have a settled backline. In their qualifier game with Limerick, there was a marginal improvement in attack, but the defence performed to a much higher level, particularly the half-backs.

"It was important for Tipp to win their qualifier game, as they didn't play particularly well against Waterford. It will give them an advantage of sorts, in the sense that the management have seen a few more players and maybe their team is a bit more settled."