Conor Lehane and Midleton find their sweet spot with Cork Premier SHC success

Conor Lehane of Midleton after the win. Picture: Sportsfile

A Cork county final that boiled down to a late-chance whistling wide of the post?

Not really. Not ever, in fact.

The temptation is always to blame or credit the last decision made in a game, a lazy habit that fails to allow for the thousands of decisions that preceded it. Then again, narratives are always easier to digest when reduced to bite-sized chunks.

That’s the general truth we can extrapolate. The specifics? Glen Rovers engineered an opportunity to draw level with Midleton deep in injury time yesterday in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, the goal yawning for the equaliser at the City end.

However, if the ball had flown the right side of the post, it would have been one twist which didn’t reflect the tale.

In truth, Midleton were well ahead of the Glen for almost the entire game. Only for losing the radar signal in the second half — when an insurance point would have tied the black and white ribbons to the cup — they’d have been well out of sight long before the clock ticked into the red zone.

The East Cork side began well, imposed their game on their opponents, and had the outstanding individual on view in Conor Lehane. If the Glen hadn’t mounted the kind of third-quarter comeback their DNA demands, it could have ended as a contest long before the final stages, and even as the losers rallied to draw level with the second water-break looming, Midleton still found the wherewithal to tap over the point that restored their advantage before the final quarter.

They hit a succession of wides in the final minutes, which must have had some supporters hiding their eyes, but even those chances were testament to a well-drilled team finding their men and working the ball out of defence with purpose.

“We worked at it,” said Midleton manager Ger Fitzgerald. “We kept at it, we didn’t stop shooting. We didn’t retreat into ourselves.

“I wouldn’t say it was frustrating; I think you couldn’t fault our fellas for having a cut. We were driving on for it, we were on the front foot all the time.

“It was a difficult wind. I wanted them to keep at it and they did. That was our mentality, keep at it, keep working, keep going.”

The Glen manufactured that last-gasp goal chance out of a two-to-one overlap in injury time — a salutary lesson for Midleton to take into future contests, perhaps — but the groan when the ball went wide was audible in Spring Lane.

Midleton were the sharper of the two teams, particularly in the first half. The default setting for any defeated side is to claim the breaks didn’t go their way almost as a matter of luck, but in Páirc Uí Chaoimh Midleton showed an impressive ability to engineer those breaks in their favour.

They were lively and, to use an old Eamon Dunphy line, at it — their half-forward line, in particular, asked uncomfortable questions of the Glen half-backs, who had been a launchpad for their side’s success in recent games.

Yesterday they were hard-pressed keeping the black and white at bay, and Midleton’s ability to win possession in and score from that area was a key element in their supremacy.

It was also a day when Conor Lehane used all the arrows in his quiver. His striking was as sweet as one might expect — it sometimes looks, and sounds, as though his entire hurley is one enormous sweet spot — and some of his touches and passes drew applause that Manolete would have recognised.

The significance of Lehane’s supporting cast was key, however — the likes of Ross O’Regan and Pa White chipped in with scores of their own, whereas Patrick Horgan shouldered more, proportionately, of the Glen’s scoring load.

Horgan was still able to magic up the only goal of the game, a first-half confidence trick he played at the Blackrock end, but his team-mates needed to give him more support in working the scoreboard.

“Yeah, it’s a tough one to take, losing three years in a row,” said Glen manager Ian Lynam. “We’ve no excuses, the better team won on the day. The first half was poor on our behalf; we were lucky to only be going in four points down at half-time.”

A narrow loss after two tight victories in the championship then, but plenty of evidence of the Glen spirit. Something to shorten the winter.

Face it, now is the time for reflection.

For instance, the chill in the air on Sunday was more wintry than autumnal, and the trees are definitely a little barer, but if the split season comes in, will we see more deciders in the waning of the year? The county final was played in very good conditions, but November may not always be as kind.

A county senior final has other functions beyond posing such questions. In past years it served as a showcase.

The ultimate experience — full-body immersion in the day as an event, as it were — traditionally wound down with hushed acknowledgement coming up the Centre Park Road, the identification of a new comet that had streaked across the sky. The player who hadn’t announced himself so much as inked his presence on the team sheet for the county the following spring, all based on a county final performance.

A couple of participants put their hands up yesterday — the likes of Tommy O’Connell might expect a call-up to the joys of the Munster Senior League, a competition that has apparently survived an attempted cull to see a rebirth in 2022.

However, this county final might have thrown up a slightly different twist on those old debates. Ben O’Connor’s playing pedigree meant his arrival as a coach was always going to be watched closely. Having enjoyed success with Charleville, his move to Midleton has coincided neatly with their first county senior title since 2013.

O'Connors side played a crisp, purposeful style this year, moving the ball well and finding team-mates in a better position. At this point he has a solid claim to be the stand-out coach in the county.

The obvious question to ask is not so much whether spectators saw the next star prospect for the red jersey in Páirc Uí Chaoimh yesterday, but whether they saw the next star prospect for the bainisteoir’s bib when Kieran Kingston completes his term.

Maybe that wasn’t the highlight of the chat yesterday. Maybe it was the introduction of former world champion Steve Collins. Maybe it was the introduction of the Cork minor and U20 All-Ireland champions. Or maybe it was the sight of the 1996 county champions, Avondhu, and the 1995 champions, Na Piarsaigh.

Yes, all of that. And two matches. No shortage of topics to help warm you through the winter until it all begins again.

What else is a county final for?