Cork must develop mean streak, says Lorcán McLoughlin

When any player describes their county’s league campaign as a mixture of “the good, the bad and the ugly”, a Division 1 final is not where you expect them to be.

But Lorcán McLoughlin is frank about Cork’s form. On Sunday, they have an opportunity to end a 17-year wait for the NHL title but it has been a choppy journey, featuring troubling home defeats to Kilkenny and Tipperary.

Ruthlessness is still the missing component of their play, says McLoughlin. Were it in their armoury, Tipperary would never have overturned a 12-point second-half deficit. Then again, Dublin didn’t have it either when they saw a similar lead eroded by Cork in the semi-final.

“If you go back over the last few years, Kilkenny and Tipperary are the top teams. And they probably still are, [there’s] no point in saying otherwise. It is something in our game that we have to develop, that ruthless streak.

“If that was Kilkenny or Tipperary last Sunday, they would have got a goal and that they would have finished us off, put us to the sword.

“That is something we have to develop, a ruthless streak, but we certainly have the firepower to do it. And defensively, we need to tighten up.

“There’s no doubt about it, our forwards are gifted. We have some of the best forwards in the country. Again, [Cork can score] maybe more goals and we have to go out with a mentality that if we are to win these big games we are going to have to score goals.”

The potential to punish teams is in the attack, insists McLoughlin.

“Lads like Patrick Horgan, Paudie O’Sullivan, Luke O’Farrell are capable of getting goals. I have seen it down the years and I see it in training every night.

“Some games they are content to take points and that is OK. The last day [against Dublin] we could easily have gone out and kept going for goals in the second half but the points were every bit as important in turning the tide as the goal. So sometimes when you are getting points you are building momentum. And then you can hit a goal as Paudie O’Sullivan did the last day.

“Sometimes goals present themselves and other times you have to work for them. You can’t tell a forward line ‘look, today we are going to go out and just look for goals because opportunities mightn’t present themselves’. But our forwards are capable of getting goals and I have no doubt that when the time comes they will get them.”

Horgan was lauded for his 17-point haul against Dublin but at yesterday’s Allianz final launch in Croke Park, McLoughlin was keener to praise Seamus Harnedy. “I think every team has their marquee forward or their go-to forward. It’s Pauric Mahony with Waterford, he spearheads their attack, and Patrick Horgan’s the same for us.

“We have quality in every sector of the field. We have subs that can come on in the forward line and do damage. Conor Lehane is having a good league campaign, Seamus Harnedy is having a phenomenal league campaign. I know Patrick Horgan is really running up the scores but I think our most effective forward has been Seamus.”

Sunday marks McLoughlin’s second league final after the 2012 defeat to Kilkenny when he admits the Cats “played with an intensity that day that I still haven’t experienced”.

Under new coach Mark Landers this year, Cork have been making a concerted effort to increase their productivity. “Ger Cunningham, when he was there and Kieran Kingston, did excellent jobs. Mark Landers has moved that on further, brought in his own approach - he’s bringing the basics, hooking and blocking, work rate. In fairness our forwards have been running up huge scores and we all appreciate we can hurl it’s just that work ethic that has to be there and I think Mark is working on bringing that approach.”