Lar Corbett: 'There's a new Jake Morris. He's starting to believe in himself'
GOAL-GETTER: Jake Morris of Tipperary in action against Tony Kelly of Clare. Pic: Ray McManus/Sportsfile
The definition of a GAA bogeyman: a player who has scored late goals to help win two championship games against the same team.
Kevin McManamon is an obvious example, having scored goals against Kerry in the 2011 All-Ireland final and ‘13 semi-final at the Hill 16 end of Croke Park. At the old Canal end, Tipperary need no reminding of how Noel Lane’s interventions confirmed Galway’s wins in the 1987 All-Ireland semi-final and ‘88 final.
Turning 24 next week, Jake Morris may appear to be on the young side for such a moniker but he has a remarkable habit of hurting Cork at just the right time. Four years ago, Cork’s U20s were leading by two points in the fourth minute of additional time in the Munster final when he broke their hearts with a fizzing effort to the net from 30 yards out.
In the first covid senior championship in 2020, his goal going into injury-time put the game beyond Cork. Sent through by Willie Connors, Morris darted towards Anthony Nash’s goal and finished with aplomb. And they are just the goals. In 2018, making his senior championship debut, he sent over the equalising point in the Munster SHC Round 2 game against Cork to complete a remarkable turnaround for Michael Ryan’s side who had been nine points in arrears at half-time.
A year earlier, he appeared to have won a Munster minor final for Tipperary with a late point in additional time before Robert Downey cancelled it out and Cork prevailed in extra-time.
In his last four championship starts against Cork, he has found the net each time, the last of them inside the first 40 seconds in Cork’s landslide Munster SHC final-round win last summer. Nevertheless, the statistics will make for weary reading among the hosts Saturday evening.
As well as his current streak, coming off posting 2-4 against Clare last Sunday week. Scorer of seven of Tipperary’s 19 goals this year including a hat-trick in the penultimate round game against Waterford, Morris has taken over the mantle as his county’s chief goal-getter from Seamus Callanan.
Morris has acknowledged former coach Eamon O’Shea for championing the power of a goal and the four years of under-age coaching from his current senior manager Liam Cahill, who scored a goal in each of his first three Munster senior games in 1996, and Mikey Bevans has only sharpened his eye for green flags.
One goal in his first three championships as a regular starter, it’s only since Cahill and Bevans took over the senior helm that the Nenagh Éire Óg man is beginning to realise the potential Michael Ryan saw when he introduced him to the senior team as a 19-year-old.
Tipperary’s second-highest championship goal-scorer with 29 to Callanan’s 36, Lar Corbett was most fond of scoring goals against Waterford but he rejects the idea that Morris will be buoyed by facing a team he’s plundered in the past. It’s his excellent form that will count for most, he says.
"What you’ve done before against a team means nothing. He’s going in with nothing but the confidence he is playing with right now.
“There’s a new Jake Morris. People in Tipperary had lost faith in Jake Morris but now people are starting to believe in Jake Morris and most importantly he’s starting to believe in himself. People in Nenagh would tell you he always had the ability but it was about getting the best out of himself.
“It comes down to confidence but it’s vital that the manager believes in you as well. Very similar to Liam Sheedy who had a word in my ear and said, ‘I want more of you and I want you working harder’ and Eamon O’Shea showing me where to run for chances and it opens up your mind.
“Jake is doing things now that he probably thought he could never do. He could be looking back at a game and thinking, ‘Wow, I didn’t think I could do that’.
But he can and you build up that memory bank as a result. You think then that you are among the best and have the belief to hold yourself among the best.”
Corbett sees a bit of himself in Morris, the 2010 hurler of the year having scored seven championship games in eight years before he went on a rampage of 19 in the space of three seasons between 2009 and ‘11.
“We’re off-the-cuff players, we run off the ball, run through the lines, looking for a break, anticipating a tackle and the ball going loose. I see similarities between us 100%.
“Now Jake is going to be a target so it’s up to the management to say, ‘This guy can do it. What can we do around him to ensure he’s not isolated? How can we make sure he has freedom to move around?’ The shooters always need to get the ball and Jake Morris sure is one of them.”
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