Understrength Cork suffer bout of Johnston jitters
The Nemo Rangers attacker has been given a leave of absence since his club’s All-Ireland final defeat to St Vincent’s and the Cork manager has revealed that it will be “the next couple of weeks” before thoughts even turn to bringing Masters back on board.
If true, that would appear to all but rule the player out of Cork’s last two league matches — against Monaghan at home next Saturday and Armagh the week after when they travel to Crossmaglen.
Masters was just one of a plethora of marquee names Cork were missing in Cavan. Anthony Lynch, Derek Kavanagh, Pearse O’Neill and Michael Cussen were also absent. Only the latter is in contention to be ready for Monaghan.
That Cork need one more win from their last two fixtures to be certain of avoiding the drop to the third tier is not a scenario most people expected prior to the weekend. Even with their personnel problems, the expectation was they would cement their status here.
“We could have done without this but we’re in there now,” said Counihan. “We’ll try and pick out where we made the mistakes. Some questions have been answered but we do have some problems.”
Cavan seemed ripe for the picking. The Ulster side hadn’t a single point to show for their efforts from their opening four games, a penchant for fading out of games costing them dearly in ties against Dublin and Meath in particular.
A win here was paramount if they were to entertain any thoughts of maintaining their Division Two status and Counihan alluded to the “sink or swim” factor as being one potential reason for the eventual result.
Though lacking in intensity for long spells, the game had a good deal to recommend it. There were 23 minutes and six points recorded before a score came from a dead ball. It was the footballing equivalent of fast food, tasty enough at the time but unlikely to sustain you for very long.
Turnovers were liberally sprinkled throughout the play, but control oscillated between two sides that just couldn’t shake one another from their coat tails. They were level ten times in total in the 70 minutes and it made for an exciting final chapter.
With ten minutes to go, it couldn’t have been closer with the teams level on points, frees conceded and even wides but two points from the sublime Seánie Johnston closed the game out for the hosts. It was a fitting ending.
Had Colm Cooper given a performance the equal of Johnston’s, the world and its mother would be raving about it. Six of his nine points came from play, every one of them a little gem.
Graham Canty had the unenviable job of tracking the Cavan Gaels man for the duration and, incredibly, given the final figures, the Cork captain did virtually nothing wrong. Johnston was simply unmarkable.
He was as understated afterwards as he had been electric earlier.
“I’m relying a lot on the ball coming in from the boys out the field,” said the full-forward. “Conditions were tough out there and I missed one or two but I’m happy enough with how it has been going for me so far in the league.”
Counihan admitted that his side hadn’t done enough to prevent the ball finding Johnston from further out the field. Not asking another defender to try his hand on the chief threat raised some eyebrows too. Either way, their inability to curb what was in effect a one-man attack will need to be addressed.
Though disappointed, Cork will hardly lose too much sleep over this defeat. Their injuries aside, the team is still feeling its way into the season as it shakes off the cobwebs from the strike and their progress to date must be viewed through that prism.
This was an evening that belonged to Cavan. At the final whistle, players, management and supporters celebrated long and hard a win that some in the county despaired of seeing at all this spring.
“We have taken a lot of stick,” said manager Donal Keoghan. “There was a lot of negativity in the papers. A lot of people were saying nothing constructive. It was all negative and that gets to the players and management. We answered our critics.”
Scorers for Cavan: S Johnston 0-9 (3f), D McCabe 0-2 (1f), R Flanagan 0-1, G Pearson 0-1.
Scorers for Cork: D Goulding 0-4 (2f), D O’Connor 0-4 (1f), F Goold 0-2, J Miskella 0-1, K O’Sullivan 0-1.
CAVAN: J Reilly; M Hannon, P Reilly, M Brides; J McCutcheon, A Forde, D Sheridan; D McCabe, J Cunningham; M Reilly, R Flanagan, M McKeever; E O’Reilly, S Johnston, G Pearson.
Subs: B Watters for McCutcheon (26), J O’Reilly for Pearson (35), R Dunne for Watters (35), M Lyng for M Reilly (48), L Mulvery for Cunningham (73).
CORK: A Quirke; D Duggan, G Canty, K O’Connor; S O’Donoghue, G Spillane, O Sexton; N Murphy, A O’Connor; J Miskella, F Goold, K McMahon; D Goulding, D O’Connor, K O’Sullivan.
Subs: P Kissane for Sexton (54), P Kelly for O’Donoghue (60).
Referee: M Deegan (Laois).
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