Collins and Cork must engineer and execute a different playbook against Limerick's green wall

As doesn’t need much recounting, the goalkeeper and his puck-outs achieved unparalleled success against the green wall. Since then, Collins’ solid anchoring has seen him blend back into the pack.

Sat, 06 Jul, 2024 - 07:02

Eoghan Cormican

Everyone was talking about Patrick Collins. And then nobody was talking about Patrick Collins.

As Seánie McGrath recently put it on these pages, the biggest compliment that could be paid to the Cork goalkeeper right now is that he has disappeared from the conversation.

When he was part of the conversation, he was at the centre of it.

On these same pages the morning after Cork’s second Munster round-robin defeat, Kieran Shannon wondered aloud as to “how many more opportunities he should be afforded” to try and reach the competency of the many outstanding Cork No.1s that went before him.

Shannon certainly wasn’t alone in questioning Collins’ form and his future in the No.1 shirt. The Cork goalkeeper was at the front of the firing line because he had misfired so spectacularly against Clare.

The Banner mined 2-5 off his restart and a third goal from a wayward clearance of his.

Of 20 second-half puck-outs, 13 were lost. And yet it was Collins’ erratic distribution that stood out and vexed far more than Cork losing in the air and on the ground along the opposition 45.

In the first half alone, Collins sent puck-outs straight to David McInerney, twice, another to Peter Duggan, and a free to David Reidy. There were three more such instances in the second period, including a 43rd minute clearance read and gathered by McInerney that ended with a Mark Rodgers goal to cut the gap to three.

Arriving off the back of a Munster opener where Cork's puck-out retention was 51% and they didn’t win a single long puck-out in the second half at Walsh Park until the 64th minute, Collins carried a gear bag laden down with pressure heading into the Limerick game.

As doesn’t need much recounting, the goalkeeper and his puck-outs achieved unparalleled success against the green wall.

When he wasn’t going route one to the edge of the D, he attacked the space on Diarmaid Byrnes’ wing. Of the 12 puck-outs onto Byrnes’ patch, Cork found 0-6. In total, they sourced a monstrous 3-12 from their own restart.

TURNING POINT: Cork's Niall O'Leary celebrates after the game with Brian Hayes. Pic: Laszlo Geczo

Since then, Collins’ solid anchoring has seen him blend back into the pack. There was an excellent save from Offaly’s Oisín Kelly and important stops to deny the Dublin pair of Donal Burke and Diarmaid Ó Dúlaing.

In the All-Ireland quarter-final, 26 of 37 puck-outs hit a red shirt. It was no fault of his that the scoring return here wasn’t more than 0-7.

Manager Pat Ryan this week imparted an interesting observation regarding Cork No.1s.

“We have a history in Cork of being critical of the great goalkeepers we have had. You go back to when Donal Óg was involved, Donal Óg was probably more celebrated when he retired. The same with Anthony Nash. They were more celebrated when they retired than they were at the time they were playing,” said Ryan.

“In the modern game, it is not just puck the ball long. You have to puck it short, puck it intermediary, you are looking for runners and right areas to put the ball into. We are delighted with what Patrick has given us.

“He needs the other 14 players doing their job too so that he can be successful as well, and we’ve done that better over the last few games. It has given Patrick more confidence, and more truth in the lads.”

The lads, said midfielder Darragh Fitzgibbon, have “ultimate faith” in Collins.

“We've worked on puck-outs, for and against, since the Clare game and he has executed them unbelievably. There's no doubt that he's one of the top keepers in the country,” Fitzgibbon remarked.

Trying to overcome Limerick twice in the one championship is challenging enough without having to conjure up a second puck-out strategy in the one championship that will again confound the champions.

Byrnes, Hannon, and the rest of the Treaty defence won’t allow themselves to be pulled and exposed as they were at Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Collins and Cork must engineer and execute a different playbook.

Ominous for Cork was the resurgence of Byrnes and Hannon in the Munster final.

Against that, Clare’s puck-out approach of lumping the sliotar down on top of static one-v-one duels was nuts to a monkey.

Even on the second ball from short puck-outs, Clare were annihilated. Limerick hit 0-4 from this latter source. In total, they struck 0-7 off Eibhear Quilligan’s restarts, whereas Clare’s dividend was only a single point better.

“That's one of the things that sets Limerick apart - how they tweak things and answer all the questions that are asked of them. We're well aware that if we bring what we brought to Páirc Uí Chaoimh that night, we won't end up on the right side of the result. We have to improve and evolve our game, and that's what we're practising at the moment,” Fitzgibbon continued.

Waterford’s Austin Gleeson, a man plenty familiar with the task of trying to assert oneself amid the Limerick half-back line, just cannot see the Treaty haemorrhaging scores off the Cork puck-out as they did in May.

“The way Cork went at it the last day was phenomenal. It’s like they went over Byrnes, Hannon, Hayes, and O’Donoghue, there was so much space between the full-back line and half-back line.

“Cork will have to change the tactics a small bit because looking at the way John Kiely and Paul Kinnerk see and read the game, there’s no way they’re going to be caught again with the long puckouts on the half-back line.

"They’ll shore up, they’ll give up the short puckouts, everything like that, but they won’t get caught like that again.”