Tyrone and Cork look to very different futures as the Rebels lie down and die
It shouldn’t and can’t get much worse than this for Cork football. But then had Luke Connolly not sent over those two late points it would have stood as a heavier pounding than the one Kerry dished out to them 14 days prior.
After that Munster final, Ronan McCarthy had put it to his players: Lie down and die or turn it around. Their preference was pretty much the former as Tyrone had this game wrapped up almost as early as half-time.
As McCarthy embarks this morning on a mission to resurrect Cork football fortunes, there may be further setbacks ahead. For one, Division 3 football in 2020 is a prospect when so much remodelling has to take place to this group.
Work, he says, begins with analysis of the U20s and some of the junior group who were two-point runners-up to Kerry in their Munster final last month but the biggest assessment will be of the current panel.
“There’s a way back from this, which is an honest exchange of where we’re at. We’ll have that during the summer and we’ll prepare and get going again for next year.
“I have my own ideas on it that I’m not going sharing now. After the first year, I’m very clear in my mind where I need to go here and where we need to go but I’m not going to share that.”
Check out the Full-Time highlights between Cork and Tyrone! pic.twitter.com/KWWUrLn5oM
— The GAA (@officialgaa) July 7, 2018
His predecessor Peadar Healy, who was stepping down as he was discussing them, had no problem expressing his opinion of where Cork were lacking.
“It’s structures and having some place to call home where you can train every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday,” he said.
“All those things. It’s getting so professional now. You draw comparisons with the Dublins, the Kerrys and the Tyrones and they all have schools of excellence.”
That might have been something on McCarthy’s mind when he spoke briefly with Cork chairperson Tracey Kennedy and secretary Frank Murphy in the corridor outside the team dressing room prior to speaking to the media.
But McCarthy can’t be spared some of the shellacking. Cork were without belief — contrary to his opinion, what happened in Páirc Ui Chaoimh clearly still upset the players — and seemingly a gameplan. What they were trying to do fell into Tyrone’s ever-so grateful hands and try as Ian Maguire and Mark Collins did in that first half when the game was a contest, their endeavour was in vain.
Given Tyrone had the momentum of three consecutive wins coming into the game, Cork needed to start well but they didn’t and they never went ahead, only levelling up with Tyrone in the 22nd minute through a Connolly free. But it was clear by that stage that Connolly was out of sorts and Tyrone were only biding their time, having had two goal-bound shots denied by Mark White.
Cork followed up with two of their own via Connolly and Michael Hurley before him but that three-minute period was as promising as things got for Cork.
Tyrone reeled off the next four points, Jamie O’Sullivan saw black for a trip of Peter Harte and Mickey Harte’s side were five points up at the break, 0-10 to 0-5, hardly flattering. Not taking the goal chances upset Harte but there was better to come from Tyrone.
“That could have put us in a difficult position,” he said.
“We had seven or eight chances and hadn’t kicked on, so we were making life a bit hard for ourselves, but getting that double score thing before half-time was very important because it sounds so much better being double scores up instead of four points.
We wanted to keep the scoreboard ticking over for ourselves, which meant the gap was never narrowing and as the game went on we took total control of the game.
There mightn’t have been a cloud in the sky but the goals rained on Cork in the second half, Conor McAliskey’s 42nd-minute goal the opener. Many of the Roscommon fans had left by that stage but the goal prompted many of the remainder curious about their Super 8 opponents next Saturday to follow suit. The score put Tyrone 10 points up and replacement Ronan O’Neill and Mark Bradley got in on the act. The massacre was complete.
Harte spoke afterwards of it not being just another qualifier but a chance to be “a small bit of history” in making the inaugural Super 8s. But for the preferential treatment that comes with their province, Cork wouldn’t come close to the last eight. The thought of what Dublin might have done to them on Leeside in two weeks’ time is frightening.
McCarthy at least has a plan. “They don’t deserve what has happened out there but that’s life and you don’t always get what you deserve and that’s it. The basics of commitment and training, dedication and work and everything else are there but they’re not coming out on the pitch and therefore we must go a different way.”
Might that mean a reneging of ideals? Perhaps but it’s abundantly obvious something has to give.
Scorers for Tyrone:
C. McAliskey (1-6, 0-4 frees); R. O’Neill (1-2, 0-2 frees); C. McShane, F. Burns (0-3 each); M. Bradley (1-0); N.
Sludden (0-2); C. Cavanagh, P. Harte (free), R. Donnelly, M. Donnelly (0-1 each).
Scorers for Cork:
L. Connolly (0-9, 6 frees, 1 45); M. Collins (0-2); R. Deane, M. Hurley (0-1 each).
TYRONE:
N. Morgan; C. McCarron, R. McNamee, M. McKernan; T. McCann, M. Donnelly (c), F. Burns; C. Cavanagh, P. Hampsey; N. Sludden, P. Harte, C. Meyler; C. McShane, R. Donnelly, C. McAliskey.
Subs for Tyrone:
R. O’Neill for C. McAliskey (50); K. McGeary for C.
McShane (52); M. Bradley for P. Harte (53); A. McCrory for M. McKernan (55); H.P. McGeary for R. McNamee (57); R. Brennan for F. Burns (59).
CORK:
M. White; J. Loughrey, J. O’Sullivan, K. Crowley; S. Cronin, K. Flahive, C. Kiely; I. Maguire (c), B. O’Driscoll; R. Deane, M.
Collins, S. White; M. Hurley, B. Hurley, L. Connolly.
Subs for Cork:
K. O’Hanlon for J. O’Sullivan (black, 33); P. Kerrigan for S. Cronin (40); D. O’Connor for B. Hurley (47); M. Taylor for B.
O’Driscoll (50); R. O’Toole for S. White (53); S. Ryan for J. Loughrey (56).
Sent off:
M. Collins (straight, 62).
Referee:
M. Deegan (Laois).
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