Whelahan: “Rome wasn’t built in a day”

THE cobwebs and accumulated dust of the long winter lay-off was very evident in this Allianz NHL opener in chilly Limerick yesterday, as both the new-look home side and an equally-experimental Cork team struggled to find any kind of hurling fluency.

Cork 0-14 Limerick 1-9

A large and enthusiastic crowd of over 6,000 had turned up with the Limerick fans eager to see the efforts of new manager Padjoe Whelahan while the Cork supporters were anxious that the improvement shown last year would be maintained.

In the event, neither set of supporters saw anything to distract them from the biting winter wind, and certainly this was not a foretaste of the likely Munster championship clash (Cork will first have to get over Kerry) between these two sides in a few months time.

Backed by the strong wind, Cork dominated an error-strewn opening period, were not at all flattered by their seven point half-time lead (0-11 to 0-4). Half-backs Sean Óg Ó hÁilpin and Ronan Curran were confirming their Allstar form of last year, the experienced Seanie McGrath had two fine points while corner-back Mark Prendergast and newcomers Graham Callinan, Adrian Coughlan and Jonathon O'Callaghan made good impressions. For Limerick, only full-back TJ Ryan and Ollie Moran looked up to scratch, and a heavy loss seemed on the cards.

The opening 11 minutes of the second half were as forgettable as the first 35 with Niall Moran and Timmy McCarthy exchanging points, and this game looked to be going nowhere. Mind you both keepers were called into action with Donal Óg Cusack and Limerick debutant John Cahill each making a point-blank save. Over the next 20 minutes, however, Limerick upped their game a notch, thanks to Ollie Moran, while Cork slipped back. Niall Moran flighted over a 65, pacy Pat Tobin capitalised on a defensive error to blast past a helpless Cusack, Andrew O'Shaughnessy potted three frees, to leave things all square at 1-9 to 0-12.

Limerick in fact would have been leading at that stage were it not for the heroics of man-of-the-match Cusack between the sticks for Cork as he produced another point-blank save and was out twice to clear dangerous situations.

The stage should have been set for a hectic finish, but it wasn't. Limerick were denied what was a blatant clear-cut foul on the increasingly-dangerous O'Shaughnessy in an eminently scoreable position.

Cork took full advantage of the let-off and closed the stronger with a couple of points from O'Callaghan.

"It was a good start," noted Donal O'Grady, referring to the two league points bagged; "there are places up for grabs, that's obvious to anyone, the Newtown contingent will be coming back after St Patrick's Day, so there are places to be won. But I'm very pleased with the lads who came in who hadn't played for Cork before, I thought they did very well. What we're looking for is commitment and we got that in abundance today. Fellas are going to make mistakes, that's to be expected, but the effort was first class, from everybody in a Cork jersey."Understandably, Padjoe Whelahan was a little more subdued. "The first half was terrible, they went down a bit, but they fought back well in the second half. I thought the referee was a bit hard on us. Andrew O'Shaughnessy deserved a free there near the end and a draw would have been a great result for us. I'm trying to get them to change their style and play ground hurling. They did it for the first ten minutes of the second half and I thought Cork weren't able for it. But all our training so far has been inside, everything we're doing is geared for the Cork game in three months time.

"At the moment we haven't a hope, but hopefully we can change our style in time for that. Remember, Rome wasn't built in a day."

To some, building Rome is the lesser challenge and, on the evidence of yesterday, Limerick do have problems, in midfield and the half-forward line especially. As Whelahan made clear however, the league will used as a testing-ground over the next three months. "We have to use the league to experiment, have to. It's a learning process s for us, and we are learning, as we go along. When we get to do some outside work on our ground hurling, you never know what might happen."

Scorers: Cork: J. O'Callaghan 0-6 (0-4 frees); S. McGrath 0-2; T. McCarthy 0-2; A. Coughlan 0-2 (0-1 free); E. Fitzgerald, B. Lombard, 0-1 each. Limerick: P. Tobin 1-0; A. O'Shaughnessy 0-3 (all frees); J. Meskell 0-2 (frees); N. Moran 0-2 (0-1 65); P. O'Grady 0-1 (free); JP Sheehan 0-1.

CORK: Donal Óg Cusack; A. Fitzpatrick, D. O'Sullivan, M. Prendergast; G. Callinan, R. Curran, Sean Óg Ó hAilpin; T. Kenny, A. Coughlan; J. O'Callaghan, M. Byrne, T. McCarthy; S. McGrath, B. Lombard, E. Fitzgerald. Subs: J. Gardiner (Fitzgerald 52); C. O'Connor (Fitzpatrick 56); P. Tierney (McGrath 63); N. McCarthy 70); K. Murphy (O'Callaghan 72). Blood sub: J. Gardiner (Byrne, 7/9; 28/31).

LIMERICK: J. Cahill; D. Reale, TJ Ryan, M. Cahill; O. Moran, P. Lawlor, M. Foley; P. O'Grady, C. Carey (c); N. Moran, J. O'Brien, J. Meskell; A. O'Shaughnessy, John P. Sheehan, P. Tobin. Subs: P. O'Reilly (O'Grady 43); S. O'Connor (Meskell 43); D. Sheehan (N. Moran 66).

Referee: S. McMahon (Clare).