Win or lose, Rebels must begin to rebuild
Irrespective of the result in O’Connor Park this evening, Cork’s season is already about regeneration and rehabilitation.
The bloodletting and backbiting of the last few weeks has probably done enough damage to morale to render impossible a Cork assault on September. After their trouncing of Kerry in Tralee at the end of the league, thoughts of ultimate glory for the Rebels didn’t seem that naive, but given the level of their under-performance in Munster, it is now fanciful to think of them as realistic contenders this year.
It was a similar scenario five years ago for Kerry when they last played championship football in Tullamore. Although Kerry went on to win the All-Ireland later, the signs all summer had pointed to a team in turmoil.
It was a time when big calls had to be made and big personalities had to step forward.
The dropping of Colm Cooper and Tomás Ó Sé may have been a convenient and calculated gamble on the management’s part but Paul Galvin and Mike McCarthy provided the personality that day against Antrim.
The other thing that remains etched in my mind was the rallying support of the Kerry followers. When the team came out for a warm-up, they were greeted with one of the most enthusiastic and lengthy clapping sessions that I’ve ever witnessed as a Kerry supporter. It was like the Kerry people were saying to the players, “We know we can be rough and tough on ye but today we’re here to help”.
It worked and once Kerry drew Dublin in the next round, they never looked back.
Seasons can be turned around, but I have yet to speak to a Cork person with a positive spin on what happened in Páirc Uí Chaoimh on July 6 and I doubt even the most blinkered Cork supporter believes their team is going to win Sam Maguire this year, but the rehabilitation has to start somewhere.
The important thing now for Cork is to stick together. It is unlikely that they will get much more than their usual support in Tullamore this evening but those who make the journey need to get behind their team even more than usual. It always surprised me to hear Cork players talk casually of the lack of support they received even when going well. It’s not like a supporter can make a tackle, create a score or win a breaking ball but, deep down players need to sense that they’re representing something and someone when they go to battle.
Otherwise everything, including victory, is of limited value.
It is pointless sifting through the entrails of the Munster final in the hope of finding some charred treasure amongst the ruins. As evidence of Cork’s true worth, that game is useless. It is also pointless picking a team based on what happened in the razing against Kerry. Where would you start?
Cork need to be choosing their soldiers now based on their character and their ability to do battle with Mayo next weekend.
Brian Cuthbert said earlier in the week that the wholesale changes made to the starting 15 reflect how the players have been performing in training since the Munster final defeat. If that is true, it’s not very encouraging to see the likes of Fintan Goold, Patrick Kelly and Daniel Goulding haven’t done enough to show the selectors that they’re still worth starting.
It’s going to take some big personalities and no small amount of leadership and experience to pull the thing together and whatever about a clearly distracted Damien Cahalane and an inexperienced John O’Rourke, the aforementioned three should be central drivers in any Cork revival. Unless there’s something more to this, the fact they’re not starting this evening is an indictment of the dynamic within the group after the Kerry defeat.
It’s difficult to argue with some of the changes made. Brian and Colm O’Driscoll obviously offer more in terms of winning breaking ball than any of the players at either side of midfield did three weeks ago with Colm, a more willingly defensive wing-forward, offering his backs more protection that they’ve been getting up to now.
Even though he is slight in stature, the elder O’Driscoll has guts to burn and I’ve had a lot of time for him ever since he first came to our attention as an irresistible force of nature in the U21 final of five years ago against Down.
Mark Collins might offer more in terms of penetration and playmaking ability in the half- forward line and a full-forward line of O Neill, Hurley and Hodnett smells of danger too.
But! But! But!
If Cork have learnt anything from their league and championship games with Kerry, it is that you must secure possession around the middle to nourish such forwards. Ian Maguire has been thrown in at the deep end and he has a lot of growing up to do quickly.
The Roscommon duo of Ultan Harney and Thomas Corcoran caused him huge bother in the first half of the U21 All-Ireland semi-final this year and he was comprehensively outplayed by the Galway pair of Tomás Flynn and Fiontán Ó Curraoin in the final of the same grade a year earlier. Asking him to make the step up to senior inter-county level at this stage of the season, is fraught with risk but perhaps his selection is influenced by the fact that Kevin McDonnell, Sligo’s best player against Limerick last time out, is still only 19.
A good performance could boost the St Finbarr’s man’s confidence but a poor showing today would destroy his self-belief.
The other consideration is the damage done by the absence of proper preparation that Cork midfield hopefuls have had.
With the departure of Pearse O’ Neill, Alan O’Connor, Graham Canty, Ciarán Sheehan and the limited availability of Aidan Walsh at football training, Cork through no fault of their own, have lost an awful lot of big men and thus haven’t been able to condition their emerging midfielders properly for serious inter-county games. Throw in the fact that one of those emerging midfielders, Ruairí Deane, has had an injury-interrupted season and that the one man who knew his midfielders better than anybody, Alan Quirke, is also retired and it becomes apparent that Cork have a dearth of big, strong, athletic types beating the hell out of each other in training.
No such concerns for those teams playing in the second game in Tullamore this evening.
Fiontán Ó Curraoin and Tomás Flynn, although well beaten even on their own kick-out against Mayo, are big and mobile, if lacking in genuine horsing capacity yet. Their opponents this evening, Steven O’Brien and George Hannigan, are having fine campaigns and it is no coincidence that opposition midfielders have been substituted in all of their four games to date.
Nor is it any coincidence that Tipp flood the middle area with big, mobile men and that Conor Sweeney’s goals tend to come from long deliveries.
The consistent selection of the same starting 15 suggests a stability that hasn’t been in Tipperary football for some time and provided they tighten up at the back and lose the dreadful habit of switching off for long periods, they must know that they are tantalisingly close to a day out in August for the first time in the modern era.
I take Cork and Tipp to make it a good day for Munster football.
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