Handover of power

THE SPORTS editor in this place gets a little cranky at times. Write what you really think, sez he, that Cork have seen the whites of Kerry’s eyes and discovered that being that close to the green and gold monster didn’t fill them with dread. Talk about 1987, and that stuff.

I was going to anyway, I said, advising him to quieten down before he did himself some harm.

It’s true. There are similarities to 22 years ago — it’s just that the present Cork players can’t see it yet, just as I couldn’t see it when I went out that day to mark Pat Spillane in Páirc Ui Chaoimh.

We knew there was something stirring. For the three years after Tadhgie Murphy’s Hail Mary winner in 1983, we’d been getting closer, and with Billy Morgan in charge, we felt sooner or later we were going to match Kerry’s stride and ease away from them.

That’s what happened after the drawn game in 1987 in Cork. We went to Killarney and won pulling up.

There’s no way of saying this in a nice way, and this isn’t being disrespectful to Kerry, but that time is now for Conor Counihan’s men. There was still a little bit of fear in Cork last Sunday in Killarney; fear than turned to surprise once it dawned that the bark was worse than the bite.

This Kerry team is creaking. They have to be. They’ve a lot of September business done in the last decade, and they are there to be dismantled. It could, and should happen at Pairc Ui Chaoimh today, a handover of power.

It struck me how much they still rely on the Ó Sé brothers after all these years; right at the end it was Tomás driving them forward for an equaliser. But their reputation, not their play, earned Kerry a second bite today.

There are still flaws in the Cork gameplan. Whether John Miskella makes it or not today, Noel O’Leary will get a start. Ger Spillane is now wing back. There’s concerns over the similarity of the mobility of the mid-fielders, Alan O’Connor and Nicholas Murphy. And there’s an onus to get better and quicker ball into the inside forward line, especially to Daniel Goulding and Donncha O’Connor. James Masters must get the start again, because he will do his damage when the play opens up. Colm O’Neill’s time is coming, but to start him anywhere in the forward line tilts the balance of attack too much towards youth and inexperience. Kelly, Kerrigan, Goulding and O’Neill? Don’t think so.

Tactical battle

Cork carried and recycled a lot of ball last Sunday. If I want that all day, I’ll go to Thomond Park. There’s been plenty of debate about Michael Cussen’s introduction, and its effect on Cork. Whatever about the tactical element to the discussion, it appeared to me that it surprised the Cork players more than Kerry’s. Like a Plan B the management forgot to tell the players about.

IT reminded me of a Plan A we had in Cork in 1987 where wing forward Jimmy Kerrigan would obstruct a slowing Páidí Ó Sé for diagonal Shea Fahy frees into John Cleary’s corner. However nobody bargained for Ó Sé planting Jimmy with a side-winder and we were all looking around for Plan B while the St John’s Ambulance men dashed on to resuscitate Kerrigan. Cleary, meanwhile tapped the ball over the bar, wondering why no-one was molesting him.

This is beginning to read like a Kerry obituary, but it’s premised on Cork’s attitude again being spot on. Jack O’Connor has picked a more balanced 15 this time; square pegs in square holes, and I’d be wary of Tommy Griffin at midfield, with his ability to break the tackle and forage in Cork territory. You have to think Aidan O’Mahony will do a better job on Pearse O’Neill than anyone managed last Sunday, and Colm Cooper will give them more. But whatever permutation you throw at it, there is nothing that counters Cork’s hunger, ability, youth and freshness.

Twenty two years ago, Cork didn’t approach the replay like they’d blown it, even if Mikey Sheehy had pinched a last-minute goal the week before (which Larry Tompkins had to equalise, by the way). If anything, the drawn game back then reinforced our self-belief. My memory that lasts is the feeling of anticipation before the replay, and recognising it for the moment it was.

Kerry will start better today because they’ve got their Championship legs now, but that shouldn’t make them any more frightening. Cork are hardly gone backwards.

There’ll be no mistakes second time around.