Cork prove their credentials whatever terms of engagement
Another cold war All-Ireland final and camogie faces an existential crisis but there’s no such concern for this Cork group today.
Once more Paudie Murray’s charges demonstrated they can win regardless of the terms of engagement.
Nine of the 27 scores yesterday came from play, an indictment of just how the game between the elite teams is played as it is officiated.
In Chloe Sigerson and Orla Cotter, Cork had snipers so sharp and unerring that it didn’t matter how far Kilkenny kept them from their posts.
Cotter’s winner was a controversial one and won’t sit easy with the losers as much as the penalty call against them in the first half.
Orla Cotter fires over the winning point in the 2018 senior camogie final #rtegaa pic.twitter.com/RnOdJnyLrM
— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) September 9, 2018
Profligacy, though, is what cost Kilkenny as much as anything else.
Eight wides to Cork’s four including Claire Phelan’s one which followed Cotter’s winner, responsibility for this narrow defeat must weigh on their shoulders as much as anyone else.
The one true goal chance did fall to Kilkenny in the 54th minute but Aoife Murray was level to Anna Farrell’s attempt and while the Cats went ahead with the follow-up 45 —one of nine placed balls converted by Denise Gaule — Cork never let up.
'Cat-like against the Cats' - Cork keeper Aoife Murray shows here agility. Highlights on The Sunday Game tonight, 9.30pm @RTE2 #CORVKIL #GAA pic.twitter.com/tMzuwg3bOL
— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) September 9, 2018
The champions scored the next two points with Amy O’Connor finishing off a nice move before Sigerson landed a trademark long-range effort.
Gaule did level the game for an eighth time in the 59th minute after Anna Farrell seemed to fall easy when challenged by Laura Treacy but Cotter was able to convert the free, which she won after Cassidy appeared to gesture that she had been tripped.
It was obvious from a long way off that frees were going to define this game. Cotter did miss one earlier in the second half as Gaule did in both halves but their marksmanship was deadly and it had to be given the way frees were being thrown out like confetti.
This was camogie from a distance although Paudie Murray wasn’t taking any of the blame for that.
“We’ve always gone to play open hurling,” he said.
“If you look at our scores this year, we’ve put up big scores. It’s not our problem if somebody goes with a sweeper against us.
“I read reports and it sickens me that we use a sweeper — we have never used a sweeper. We have never gone to play a sweeper — our centre-back doesn’t move out of the position. I can’t deal with the opposition and what they do. If you look at it, they had five on one side of the field and seven on the other.”
Sigerson was exquisite with three low-percentage frees and Murray revealed she had been pinpointed as an asset in a game such as yesterday.
“We have spent a lot of time working with Chloe over the last two or three years. She’s probably one of the sweetest strikers of a ball playing the game and certainly we did a lot of work in our long-range frees because we felt we were being fouled outside the scoring range a lot and we felt we could always pick off one or two points in and around the 65 so we developed that.”
In front of a 21,467 attendance, the teams went into the Hogan Stand tunnel level pegging, 0-8 apiece, after Orla Cronin had sent over the last two points of the half.
“I was getting worried at that stage and those two points were key because we were going in that more relaxed at half-time,” said Murray.
Kilkenny had looked keener in general play for most of the half but the margin was never more than two points and Cork bettered them in shooting efficiency, registering two wides to four.
“We missed too many chances,” said Ann Downey.
“We had too many balls that fell into the goalkeeper’s hand. We missed a few frees and drove a few wides that we shouldn’t have.
“It’s not all down to a referee, it’s down to the game management when the girls get onto the pitch and on big days it’s hard to expect them to hurl the whole 60 minutes and use their brain.
“At times in the heat of battle you do things that you wouldn’t normally do. But overall I thought our girls were magnificent. Their hooking, blocking and work-rate. Probably just the finish let us down.”
Cork match winner Orla Cotter on coming out the right side of a match that was tit-for-tat @CorkCamogie @KilkennyCamogie #rtegaa pic.twitter.com/MQRmHTAvjj
— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) September 9, 2018
Cork were handed a penalty in the eighth minute after Cassidy’s umpires informed him Amy O’Connor was brought down in the area although footage indicated the call was harsh on Gaule whose momentum took her into the Cork forward.
Murray blasted the ball over the bar and was in a role reversal at the same Davin Stand goalposts deep into the second half as she stopped Farrell finding the net.
“I didn’t see it,” Paudie Murray said of his sister and captain’s intervention.
“The game has passed me by. Obviously, we were trying to get ourselves set up correctly. I’ve heard it was a good save. That’s what she’s there for, really.”
A goal would have been out of sync with a game whose narrative was wholly predictable. In light of their habit for such finales, that Cork ended on the right side of it wasn’t all that surprising either.
O. Cotter (0-5, frees); C. Sigerson (0-3, frees); K. Mackey, O. Cronin (0-2 each); A. Murray (pen), A. O’Connor (0-1 each).
D. Gaule (0-10, 7 frees, 2 45s); M. Quilty, J.A. Malone, M. Farrell (0-1 each).
A. Murray (c); P. Mackey, L. O’Sullivan; L. Treacy; H. Looney, L. Coppinger, C. Sigerson; A. Thompson, G. O’Connor; J. White, O. Cronin, A. O’Connor; K. Mackey, L. Collins.
L. Homan for L. Collins (50); N. McCarthy for A. O’Connor (60+4).
E. Kavanagh; C. Foley, D. Tobin; A. Dalton; G. Walsh, C.Phelan, J. Clifford, C. Dormer; M. Farrell, D. Gaule; J.A. Malone, M. Quilty, S. Farrell (c); A. Farrell, K. Power.
M. Walsh for M. Quilty (35).
E. Cassidy (Derry).
The free awarded to Orla Cotter at the end, one which seemed to puzzle her as much as anybody else. Referee Eamon Cassidy infuriated the Kilkenny sideline with the call. It was one of several borderline calls.
The refereeing. If this doesn’t prompt a change to how the game is judged then nothing ever will. Cork and Kilkenny have outgrown the game.
“Sometimes you’d like the game to be a bit more free-flowing, that would only do wonders for the game,” said Gemma O’Connor. “I think he (the referee) did stop-start it a bit too much, but look, we’re on the better end of it, I can’t complain too much.”
No officiating can overshadow another day when Cork were far more clinical than the Cats.
Kilkenny manager Ann Downey acknowledged that afterwards and it’s something after the fury about the officiating that will remain with them.
Is camogie in crisis? When players speak openly about the game being more physical despite the game being a non-contact sport, do the powers-that-be realise it is at a crossroads?
At the outset, the Cork forwards gathered in and around the Kilkenny penalty area where they were followed by their markers. Murray denied his team played a sweeper, keen to point out that they had a defender freed up by Kilkenny’s decision to flood the defence.
Murray pointed out that the teams knew each other so well that tactics proved easier than usual.
There didn’t appear to be anybody suffering the ill effects of yesterday’s final.
The marksmanship of Orla Cotter and Denise Gaule was so impressive and yet the latter will be kicking herself that she missed a couple. Julia White and Chloe Sigerson gave sterling shows.
Fussy. Pedantic. Overzealous. A lot of criticisms have been aimed at Cassidy since the final whistle but he must commended at least for giving good advantage at times.
However, he had created such a zero tolerance environment that by the end players were lining up to sell him frees and he was buying a lot of them. The penalty call, on the basis on his umpires’ judgement, was a bad one too.
The 2019 league will be up and running come mid-January. Kilkenny now know beating Cork in the competition as they did this year doesn’t count for much in the long run.
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