Cork aim to break seven-year hoodoo

SEVEN years ago, Conor McCarthy was a member of the Cork minor team which defeated Kerry by double scores in the Munster final in Pairc Uí Chaoimh.

That same afternoon he witnessed the last victory by the Cork seniors over the Kingdom in a provincial decider.

Sunday, he and his team-mates hope to end that barren spell in Fitzgerald Stadium, appreciating that few give them much chance of toppling the holders.

That minor final in 1999 has some notable participants. The Cork side included hurling stars Ronan Curran and Tom Kenny in the half-back line. McCarthy lined out at centre-forward and the player who filled the corresponding position on the Kerry team was Tadhg Kennelly. And, it was in the number 11 jersey that the O’Donovan Rossa man made his senior championship debut just two years ago, with Kenny having played there the previous year when Cork crashed to a shock defeat against Limerick in Pairc Ui Chaoimh.

McCarthy is now the ‘senior’ member of the attack — something which he himself hadn’t been conscious of.

“After playing my first game in Killarney two years ago, this is my third season and all of a sudden I was the oldest of the forwards against Limerick.

“I didn’t realise until someone said it to me afterwards,’’ he commented.

This year he has been mainly operating at wing-forward, next to David Niblock — son of former Derry star Mickey and holder of two All-Ireland club medals won with Nemo Rangers in the eighties.

“I have played alongside David all the way up. Coming out of defence, he’s a major option in terms of a long high ball in. If you can learn to play off him it’s a big benefit.”

Cork have worked hard on improving their style of play, stressing the importance of the League in helping to achieve progress.

“It doesn’t always have to be about results,” he explains. “If you form a new pattern of play — that’s something that would be far more valuable to take out of the competition. We have tried different things. I suppose if we persisted with the same system we’d become very one-dimensional.”

In reviewing their patchy semi-final performance against Limerick, one particular problem was identified. Yes, it was true that Limerick did make it hard for them to score, but Cork also made it difficult for themselves.

“We didn’t move the ball quickly through the middle third of the field. We are under no illusions about that. There are going to be teething problems with any new pattern of play, but we’d want to be well and truly over that at this stage. We’re playing the best team in the country on Sunday.

“There is no more time for experiments!”

Coming off the field that day, he admitted Cork were more relieved than anything else. “Cork teams have played Limerick in the past and lost. If you were looking for one thing out of the game, it was the result really,’’ he said.

Still, Cork only managed to score nine points over 70 minutes — and six of those came from James Masters.

“When you’re involved in the game, you don’t realise it at the time. But, when we were doing the warm-down I just turned around to James and I realised that he was after getting most of our scores.”

While appreciating that Kerry came in for criticism too, following their game against Tipperary, he says he was ‘extremely impressed’ by them. “There was talk of a malaise but that was a classic overstatement,” he remarked. “They scored 17 points. How many teams score that in a championship game? If you have a malaise and get 17 scores, it’s something you can look back on and be satisfied with.”

Ambitions for the team and himself are balanced by the realisation of how formidable a task it is to take on Kerry on their home patch. He only has to think back to two years ago to be reminded of just how difficult it will be.

“At half-time in that match I think Kerry were in front by six points to three and I remember thinking ‘we’re in with a right shout here. We’re after weathering the storm.’ But with a team like Kerry if they get a run on you, in the space of five or six minutes they can be four or five points up on you. And in the next two or three minutes it could be 10.

“You look on as a supporter and think, I’m never going to let that happen or never be a part of that. But, before you know it you are in the middle of it.

“You must be really prepared, otherwise you’ll suffer the consequences.”

If experience against Kerry has taught him anything, it’s that it takes much more than ‘weathering the storm’ to beat them. It takes much more than minimising them during their periods of dominance. To beat them, you must match their use of possession during your own period on top.