Making sense of Cork’s collapse at Croke Park

Heuston Station, 6pm Sunday. "Don’t be too hard on us." "They never got going."

“That was the worst ever.” “You can sum that up in one short sentence.”

Having tottered back from Croke Park the followers of the routed army were milling around the station, and what was written on their faces was not so much disappointment as shock, puzzlement and in many cases, downright mystification. Had they really just witnessed what they thought they’d witnessed? From Cork? At Croke Park? In an All Ireland semi-final? Hitting — an afterthought, this, but no less astonishing — 1-11?