Factors that will break the deadlock
1. Must do better with the . . . slow start.
Waterford were the quicker team out of the blocks last Sunday, going 1-5 to 0-3 ahead after 12 minutes. Cork reeled them in by the break, but conceded 1-1 inside the first three minutes after the restart.
“Things are after calming down now,” said Cork star Ben O’Connor yesterday.
“We started both halves slowly yesterday, no doubt about that. Both times they got ahead of us by a good score, so we’ll be hoping to make a better start the next day — we don’t want to give ourselves too much to do.
“That means we’ll have to settle into our rhythm faster and get it going quicker. Once we got into it on Sunday we did well, but it’s getting past the start is the issue — there’s a lot of pressure early on, lads are hyped up, so we’ll have to settle it down a bit quicker.”
The importance of Tom Kenny and Jerry O’Connor at midfield for Cork has always been obvious, and Kenny’s return from injury last weekend reinforced that, as the pair didn’t just protect their half-backs and link the play but drove forward to score as well.
Ben O’Connor is confident brother Jerry, who was substituted on Sunday, will be fit for the replay (“Ah, he’ll be fine,”) while pointing out the specialised task of Cork’s players at 8 and 9.
“We’re used to having midfielders who’ll carry the ball forward as well and take the scores as well — it’s like having two extra forwards on the team.
“Anyone who’s come in at midfield for us, like Kevin (Hartnett), plays the same way, so it helps our attack, obviously, that the replacements know their job.”
O’Connor defended Cork’s goalscoring record this season in the pages of this newspaper last week. Last Sunday proved his point. “We mentioned it last week and getting three on Sunday was great,” O’Connor said.
“Of course, Waterford got three as well, so we’ll have to stop them from doing that next Sunday. It’s good that the goals we got were all different, too. There was a good bit of inter-passing before Kieran won the penalty, and then for Neil (Ronan’s0 second goal, Tom (Kenny) made a long run down the middle.
“Kieran’s goal was different again — a long ball came down to him which broke to Neil, and Kieran won the ball to go through the middle. It’s a good sign for us that we did different things to score each of our goals.”
1. Must do better with the . . . shot selection.
Waterford spoiled their bright start to each half with some wayward shooting — they had a particularly bad run of five wides in a row halfway through the second half, for instance.
What will disappoint their mentors was that those weren’t percentage choices.
“You’d feel that we had a few bad wides when you look back on it, including misses from long-range frees,” said Waterford selector Seamie Hannon. “But in fairness to the lads, you’ll have to take the positives and pluses as well. We’re delighted with the way they battled back.”
Waterford began each half with a flourish — and a goal, from Dan Shanahan and Paul Flynn respectively.
As Hannon said, fluctuating periods of supremacy have featured in several games this season. Waterford have been maximising the return when they get on top.
“We dominated early on and kind of built up a lead and they came back,” said Hannon.
“In the Tipp/Limerick games, Tipp were ‘lording it’ at one stage. It’s hard to put your finger on it, but every team gets a purple patch. “Cork had it and we started the second half like that. We got a goal and we put down a marker again, and still Cork came back and they grafted it out. They got a lucky goal, a ball that Ken McGrath could have cut out but missed it and your man (Kieran Murphy) ‘clung it.’
“It was a humdinger and from spectators’ point of view it was good, but it wasn’t like that on the sideline.’’
Four points adrift with two minutes left, Waterford’s summer looked over and done with. But they dug deep to claim that sensational draw on the final whistle.
“You’d have to take pride from the way the lads ‘play on,” said Hannon.
“It has given this team a new lease of life. It wasn’t in Waterford teams until Justin (McCarthy) came. They really play out the 70-minutes plus. They proved it in Croke Park on Sunday.
“They weren’t gone nearing the end, even though we looked dead and buried. With two minutes left and we were four points down you would have felt we’d be pushing our luck to get a draw out of it.
‘‘You would have been inclined to think that the match was going to swing in Cork’s favour, that it was ‘their’ game.
“We had that chance at the end where we could have stolen in. Donal Óg Cusack made a brilliant save, I don’t know how he stopped it. But we were still able to grind out a result.”
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