Captain Canty left to rue another day of agony for Rebels

FOR ten years Graham Canty has been soldiering away for the Cork cause, yet the strongest theme of his football career surfaced again yesterday in Croke Park.

Once more their All-Ireland dreams were crushed and once more it was Kerry who were doing the crushing.

The result proved all the more excruciating after the positive progress Cork had made throughout the year, by claiming the NFL Division Two title, carrying off the spoils in the Munster final and making a forceful statement of intent when they ousted champions Tyrone in the All-Ireland semi-final.

And initially the signs were positive that they were going to tap into the magical form they have already displayed this summer.

By the 11th minute they had sailed 1-3 to 0-1 clear, yet that early verve and sparkle was misplaced for the remainder of the half.

Despite their poor form in the lead-up to the interval, Canty maintained afterwards that there was a positive air in the Cork dressing room before emerging for the second-half.

“The lads were calm enough, we were only two scores down and we had played poorly for the last 15 minutes especially in the first half. We had started well but the lads were itching to get back out there because we hadn’t performed in the last 15 minute. There was no panic, everyone was relaxed, we were two points down in an All-Ireland final. ”

As the second half wore on, Cork never managed to generate a run of scores that could vault them back into contention. But Canty was adamant that belief never drained out of the side as they kept ploughing on.

“No, I don’t think the belief started to ebb away. Maybe if you weren’t creating the chances you would be questioning whether there was belief there or not. When we were creating the chances there was no doubt that there was belief there. There’s savage belief in this team. I don’t think anyone could question that.

“The way I was looking at it was we were creating the chances. We didn’t take them and if we had to take maybe half of them it could have been more settling but we were on top for that phase of the game but still creating chances.”

Cork’s best opportunity to get into a position of real contention arrived at that juncture in the second-half when they trimmed the deficit to 0-13 to 1-8. Canty admitted their prospects of victory were compromised by an inability to draw level and maintain that spell of dominance.

“We got two scores on the trot and Kerry seemed a bit unsettled. We seemed to dominate for five, six or seven or eight minutes around the middle. If we had maybe stayed on top for another while, who’d have known but Kerry were always going to come. They’re a good side so you’re not going to stay on top of them for long.”

Kerry’s success is another triumph for the backdoor system, as they replicated Tyrone’s route to success last year in getting knocked out of the provincial championship before recuperating on the qualifier route. Canty strongly refuted any suggestions that the championship structure was a factor in their reversal.

“We don’t make the call on that, we go out and play the games and prepare for them. It didn’t seem to do us any harm, we played well throughout the year, maintained a focus, maintained the form coming all the way into this so it did us no harm.”