McEneaney: big question still remains

MONAGHAN manager Seamus McEneaney believes question marks will continue to follow Cork footballers until they go all the way and claim the county’s first All-Ireland title since 1990.

Like many observers, McEneaney was hedging his bets ahead of Sunday’s semi-final against Tyrone and, impressed though he was, he believes the Rebels must clear one last fence – they must beat Kerry in the final.

The Kingdom face Meath in the second semi-final Sunday but McEneaney believes Jack O’Connor’s side will navigate that with between four and eight points to spare and it will be then that Cork will face the ultimate test.

“There are still questions to be answered. Every team has questions over them until they go and win it, and only Cork can answer them. They have basically folded every time they have met Kerry (at Croke Park) but at least now they look to be in a better position to answer them.”

McEneaney is well qualified to make that call given the fact his Monaghan side faced Cork twice in the league this year and it is only two summers since they fell to Tyrone by just two points in an Ulster final.

The consensus is that Tyrone were out-Tyroned at Croke Park two days ago and McEneaney agrees with that.

“Cork were very intense,” he said. “Their players doubled up in the tackle and Tyrone had no answer for that.

“As we expected, Cork were very strong in the middle third, especially at half-back and half-forward, and their goalkeeper’s kickouts were excellent as well. They won a lot of ball and a lot of Tyrone ball as well.

“Graham Canty was named man of the match because he was able to pick up on that ball and power forward all day but I’m surprised that Joe or Justin McMahon didn’t start on Pearse O’Neill at centre-half forward.”

It is less than four months since Monaghan were blown away by the Munster side in the Division Two final but McEneaney was nonetheless taken aback by the amount of ball winners the All-Ireland finalists possessed, particularly up front. One other interesting aspect to Cork’s victory was their ability to slow down Tyrone, particularly in the initial stages of the second half, when a succession of fouls were willingly conceded further out the pitch.

Call it cynical, call it clever. Either way, it worked.

“Cork were down to 14 men and they needed a stop-start sort of game in the second half. That’s exactly the way Tyrone would have played it if they had been in that situation. Maybe Cork went a wee bit over the top at times.

“They were probably lucky that they were able to finish with 14 men but you have to play on the edge when you are playing Tyrone. Conor Counihan has added that bit of steel into them, that’s obvious now.

“I told ye in the Irish Examiner last week that there were still question marks about this Cork team. Could they put two good performances back to back and now they have. Now we know that this is a very strong Cork team.”

Another interested observer on Sunday was Kildare selector Paul Grimley, who held a similar role with Armagh when Joe Kernan’s side regularly butted heads with Tyrone in the Ulster and All-Ireland championships.

He too felt that Cork’s sheer size and physicality played a key role in lowering the Tyrone banner.

“Cork would have looked at how Kildare played against Tyrone in the quarter-final and probably developed a lot of the ideas we had, built on them, but this is a Cork team that has been in the ascendancy for a number of years now.

“Cork are a team built on pace and power and they have got that balance right, especially in the half-back and half-forward lines, and they are able to create scores from all over the pitch. That’s difficult to play against.

“If Tyrone have had a weakness over the last few years, it would be a lack of size. They were always vulnerable to teams pumping long balls into the square and Cork’s size and physicality was too much for them.”

Grimley has seen too much of Tyrone in recent times to believe that they will now go quietly into the good night but he wasn’t all that surprised to see them bettered at the weekend.

Football, he said, moves in cycles and maybe a new one began yesterday. So then, did we see football’s new masters last Sunday?

“Cork are a totally different team to the side they were a few years ago. The problems they had off the field have galvanised them mentally. It’s been a great summer so far, not just in the later rounds but earlier on as well.

“Different teams have looked good at different times. Dublin after the Leinster final, Kerry after they beat Dublin and Tyrone after they beat Kildare. The thing is, favourites don’t always win. It’s all about the performance on the day.”