Many bad Cork habits were shaken this year, though clearly not all
Mayo’s Kobe McDonald celebrates at the final whistle. Pic: INPHO/James Crombie
Nothing knee-jerk. No reduction of a progressive red year to rubble. The most recent 70 minutes does not define and drown out the season of minutes leading up to last Saturday.
Now that the terms of reference for the Cork review have been set out, a further introductory point needs making. Criticism of Cork’s missed opportunity can co-exist with clarity of thought surrounding their entire year. You don’t have to pick a side. The respective views are not in conflict with one another.
You’re allowed to acknowledge the positives of league promotion and still roar in vexation at failing to win an utterly winnable All-Ireland quarter-final.
Cork's latest Croke Park failure will hurt because so much of the failure was self-inflicted. Their Mayo opponents had been unconvincing all summer and were further unconvincing in the opening half here. Jack Livingstone’s restart wobbled and scoring space inside the arc was wide in generosity.
What will gnaw at Cork is the inescapable reality that they didn’t need to reach a height that went beyond what shaded Meath or stunned Donegal. They more needed to bring a mix of the tactical flexibility from Ballybofey and earlier chaos-reveling from Páirc Uí Rinn.
They brought neither. What they instead brought was a horrendous final product from not difficult scoring positions. Accompanying that was a rashness to their forward play decision-making that harked back to what had been witnessed in the Munster final defeat to Kerry.
In the two championship games this year where genuine expectation surrounded Cleary’s side, they let themselves down. In the two visits to Croke Park this year, their first halves were laced with regret over the litter of flags not taken. Too much self-destruction.
Unlike the teenage pair of Darragh Beirne and Kobe McDonald who came into Croke Park for the first time and seized the biggest game of their very infant careers, Cork’s more seasoned campaigners were unable to get up on their toes and grab the right-there-in-front-of-them-opportunity to reach a first All-Ireland semi since 2012.
Absolutely nobody knows what is around the inter-county corner, but still, it is just so difficult to see this Cork group getting a more takeable chance than Saturday to be part of football’s last-four line-up.
The county’s losing run at GAA HQ has gone from nine game into double digits. The losing run will extend to a 12th year. The visits, while less infrequent, are still most unpleasant. Many bad habits have been shaken this year, though clearly not all.
Mayo’s day was drenched in momentum-grabbing moments. They grew in front of us. Kobe’s outside-of-the-right two-pointer ended a 15-minute period of just a solitary Mayo score. It cut Cork’s lead to the minimum. Ryan O’Donoghue’s two-pointer seconds from the interval hooter wiped the Cork lead entirely.
In between Beirne’s two orange flags during the six minutes after half-time, there was an act of relentless harrying to force Steven Sherlock and Seán McDonnell out of possession in the corner of the Hogan Stand. The play finished with Kobe streaming through for a point. Diarmuid Duffy executed a superb turnover on a streaming-through Colm O’Callaghan. Kobe streamed through the skies to collect a Livingstone restart after Cork closed to within one, 0-15 to 0-14, late in the third quarter.
Cork’s moments stalled rather than surged momentum. Cork’s moments were misses and wilful waste.
Eight first half wides. 14 in total. Chris Óg Jones and Brian O’Driscoll goal chances pushed away at either end of the sandglass. Two brainless breaches.
Cork took aim at the Mayo posts on 36 occasions. 16 stuck, 20 did not. That’s a 44% conversion rate. The numbers are worse again from play alone. 11 stuck, 19 did not. That’s a 38% conversion rate.
No orange clockwork. Just two orange flag attempts from play across the 70 minutes. No successful orange flag attempt from play for only the third time this year. Partial credit here to Donnacha McHugh’s policing of Steven Sherlock on the loop.
While we’d be very slow to criticise Paul Walsh given he was a rare figure in red embodying efficiency, he opted for white from just inside the arc on 25 minutes when Cork had two free outside it.
A few minutes later, Paul Towey fumbled a short Mayo restart. No punishment was administered by their opponents. Cork flitted away the opening by Tommy Walsh kicking wide. They just never helped themselves.
Given how much trouble his pace caused, could Cork have fed Jones more often than they did? Questions. Regrets. Much, much ruing.
2026 was by a distance the most settled team of Cleary’s five years. The prioritisation of out-and-out forwards was central to finally escaping Division 2. Insufficient depth, however, was highlighted on Saturday. Luke Fahy’s injury-enforced absence was felt. Cork had no Tommy Conroy to spark third and fourth-quarter menace.
Good year, bad, bad finish. Two truths, even if only one seems relevant this morning.
R O’Donoghue (0-8, tp free, 0-2 frees); D Beirne (0-7, tp, tp free); K McDonald (0-4, tp); J Carney (0-2, tp); T Conroy, C Loftus (0-1 each).
S Sherlock (0-7, tp free, 0-2 45s, 0-1 free); P Walsh (0-3); M Cronin (tp free), C Óg Jones (0-2 each); R Maguire, I Maguire, C O'Callaghan, B Hurley (0-1 each).
J Livingstone; D McHugh, E McGreal, J Coyne; S Callinan, D McBrien, E Hession; B Tuohy, J Carney; S Coen, P Towey, J Flynn; D Beirne, R O’Donoghue, K McDonald.
D Duffy for McGreal (12 mins, inj); T Conroy for Towey (HT); M Ruane for Tuohy (54); R Brickenden for Duffy (65).
: P Doyle; D O’Mahony, M Shanley, S Meehan; B O’Driscoll, T Walsh, R Maguire; I Maguire, C O’Callaghan; S McDonnell, D Sheedy, P Walsh; M Cronin, C Óg Jones, S Sherlock.
R Deane for McDonnell (48); C Loftus for Coen (49); C Corbett for Sheedy (51); B Hurley for Cronin (61); S Brady for R Maguire (62); S Walsh for P Walsh (65).
M McNally (Monaghan)
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