Coach says Cork not complacent
Following victories over Kerry (after a replay), Tipperary, Waterford and Laois (after a replay) the bookies believe the Munster champions are favourites to regain a title they last won 12 years ago.
But the Cork coach rubbishes such talk.
Said Leahy: “If you look at Mayo’s progress to this final, you have to be impressed by their victories over the holders Galway in the Connacht final and particularly over Tyrone in the All-Ireland semi-final.
“They beat Tyrone in extra time and you don’t do that too often to northern teams. For that reason alone, Mayo deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Cork to win the title tomorrow.”
For a few moments after defeating Kerry in the opening round of the Munster championship, Leahy could afford to feel that this could be his side’s year.
But he quickly set about stamping out any complacency that could derail their bid to reach the national final. It’s to his and his fellow selectors’ credit that they did that to perfection. Showing the utmost respect to Tipperary and Waterford in the remaining games in Munster, Cork cruised to an emphatic victory to take their third provincial title in a row.
“The two matches against Laois were excellent and showed we have the necessary character and football know-how to finish the job, but I’ve learned over the years both as a player and team mentor that you can take nothing for granted in this game,” he said.
“You can be blown out of it when you least expect, so it’s important to take the matches as they come and not to be looking too far ahead.
“I’m on record as saying that this particular group of players needed to get to an All-Ireland final after failing to do so two years in a row. They need to sample the hype and atmosphere of the occasion to appreciate what it means.
“There is no point in getting to the final, however, if you don’t win it. Losers of All-Ireland finals are soon forgotten. Mayo want this title just as badly as Cork. History will point to the last meeting between the counties in the final and Cork winning, but that counts for nothing.
“Their primary concern is tomorrow and given the excellent paths to the final of both teams, there is going to be very little between us at the final whistle.”
Mayo manager Pat Holmes was in Limerick for the semi-final replay last Saturday and was given plenty of food for thought.
“I didn’t learn anything that I didn’t know already about Cork,” he said. “We played them in a friendly back in February and they showed us we had a lot of leeway to make up if we were going to make an impression this year.
“When you consider that Mayo haven’t won a Connacht minor title in five years, the progress of this year’s U21 team is remarkable. That defeat by Cork back in February (by 11 points) was the perfect wake-up call for us and to be fair, everyone put their shoulder to the wheel and we are where we are through sheer hard work.
“Galway had lost the best of last year’s All-Ireland winning team for this year’s campaign and were vulnerable. But victory over Tyrone in the semi -final did make people sit up and take notice.
“We were under the cosh for long periods in that game, took them to extra time and then scored the winning point, too late for them to make a comeback. We showed a lot of bottle in that game and hopefully we can carry that into tomorrow’s decider.
“However, I know that we’ll have to play to the maximum of our ability if we are to beat Cork.
“They have risen the bar considerably, but we are going into the game knowing that if we play to our ability, we have as good a chance as they have. It should be a great game between two footballing teams.”
Not unexpectedly, both sets of selectors have given votes of confidence to their semi-final-winning teams by naming the same starting 15 for tomorrow’s final.
: K O’Halloran; R Carey, C Murphy, S O’Donoghue; D Limrick, M Shields, E Cadogan; A O’Connor, P Kelly; F Gould, C Keane, P Kerrigan; D Goulding, P O’Flynn, J Hayes.
: K O’Malley; T Howley, G Cafferkey, K Higgins; C Barrett, T Canniffe, C Boyle; S O’Shea, B Moran; A Campbell, J Dillon, A Kilcoyne; M Ronaldson, M Hannick, M Conroy.
: J McQuillan (Cavan).
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