Nash contribution key in game of fine margins

Something profound happened in the fourth minute at Croke Park on Sunday.

Anthony Nash took a puckout. Fourteen seconds later Luke O’Farrell sent the sliotar sailing between the uprights at the far end.

Doesn’t sound much, but there and then the template for the first half was set: Nash pucking out and one of his colleagues hitting a point in the same sequence of play before the ball went dead.

Eight of the Kanturk man’s restarts led to Cork scoring within 15 seconds (see panel). A ninth, the one that immediately followed David Treacy’s goal for Dublin, led to Seamus Harnedy winning a free that Pat Horgan converted: an instant riposte. And so what might have been a tight encounter had become a shootout. And the neater, wristier hurlers were never going to lose a shootout, were they?

It wasn’t that simple, of course. It rarely is. Dublin didn’t lose the game because they lost the first half. The afternoon was turned on its head in the space of a few moments during the third quarter, just when the Leinster champions had built up a fine old head of steam — even if, let’s not forget, the pendulum was always going to shift back Cork’s way at some stage, whenever and for however long.

Nash’s save from Ryan O’Dwyer, Paul Ryan’s squandered free, O’Dwyer’s dismissal: from going potentially three points up to being level and a man down.

It was like election night in the US and one of those all-important swing states suddenly changing colour from blue to red. The game wasn’t quite up but the battle had tilted decisively.

Given the coverage that has been devoted to the O’Dwyer affair and will continue to be, it is only right and proper that space should be devoted to Cork’s exhibition of point scoring on Sunday.

The winners scored points from all angles. They scored them from all distances. Crucially, because this is what separates a class forward from a good trier, they scored them from within their own ground, from inside a tight circumference, without needing to put sliotar on stick and sprint 20 metres to outpace the other guy and make room to swing.

The pick of the bunch? Probably Conor Lehane’s take-down of Luke O’Farrell’s cross in the first half, though Jamie Coughlan hit one from distance in the second half that deserved honourable mention.

Lehane’s effort epitomised Cork’s enduring native strengths — first touch, spatial awareness, liquid wrists — and what on the face of it is a weakness.

Lar Corbett or Joe Canning in the same situation as Lehane, faced with only Peter Kelly, would have put the head down and driven on for goal. Lehane was perfectly happy to stand off, play the percentages and keep the scoreboard ticking over. Cork won the All-Ireland in 1999 by taking their points, and doing so with such frequency and aplomb that the goals didn’t actually need to come.

They’re clearly intent on pulling the same stunt this season. One goal in four matches then, one in four now.

Was it a classic? Not quite. The points came too easily, too quickly for that. The first half resembled a basketball match with ash plants added.

‘My turn to attack. Now your turn. Now mine again.’

In an epic, scores are hewn from rock. They have to be. Sunday’s was a beautiful cake loaded with icing and cherries and spangles, topped with a silver fairy.

In the way of aspirants, Dublin needed more to go right for them than Cork did. They couldn’t afford to spill a drop of water. But the winners’ last point of the first half, from Daniel Kearney, arrived after both Niall Corcoran and Shane Durkin found a red shirt with their respective clearances; a Corcoran fumble 10 minutes from time led to Pat Horgan restoring Cork’s lead; and Dublin were still a going concern when Horgan mugged Gary Maguire for the goal.

Any player can make an individual error. Dublin, however, couldn’t afford that many of them. Not here. Not against Cork.

Were Anthony Daly doing it all over again he’d surely deploy his midfielders more conservatively in the first half. They played 10 metres too far up the field, which meant the half-back line was penetrated too easily and there were no bodies on hand to clear the ball out of the rucks.

Yet it says something about Daly’s confidence in his own troops that he was willing to gamble on winning a gunfight. Having seen what they did to Galway, why shouldn’t he have?

This wasn’t the Dublin of four years ago with their seven defenders or three midfielders, bent on dragging the opposition down a level.

This was Dublin as provincial champions, proud and expansive and happy to go toe to toe with all comers.

If there was one Cork player who ruined it all on them, who they didn’t see coming and couldn’t have bargained for, it was Lorcán McLoughlin with his six shots and three points. Not since Colin Lynch in 2005 has a midfielder covered as much ground in an All Ireland semi-final.

It was unfortunate, if understandable, that Dublin were patronised afterwards with guff about how ‘they’ll be back next year’ Zzzzz.

The whole point of Sunday’s defeat, the sting in the tail, was that they may not be. They could well be Leinster champions again in 2014 but they’ll never have a more eminently winnable All-Ireland in their sights. The classier team with the classy manager won? Yes. And a classy team with a classy manager lost. A pleasure and a pity.