Seánie McGrath: What's another year? Cork collapse leaves familiar questions unanswered

The Rebels needed leaders to take the game against Clare by the scruff on Saturday. 

CONTRAST: While Galway celebrate, Cork's Barry Walsh sits dejected after another Croke Park second half collapse. Pic: James Crombie, Inpho

In the storm of memes flying around as I made my way back from Croke Park, one of Johnny Logan in a Cork jersey stood out.

We were all reared on a bit of Eurovision and the tagline, ‘What’s another year?’, hit home. I got a giggle out of it at first, but it rankled with me for the evening. I mean, here we go. We're repeating the same stuff and it is just another year gone by.

It was close in 2024, but Cork were in a position of control. 2025 was a disastrous collapse and you could argue that 2026 was very similar.

It felt at one stage in the first half that Cork were in a position to go in with a six- or seven-point half-time lead. They just lacked that killer stuff; composure and more punch in the attack.

The sense that Cork were on the cusp of taking over was similar to the 2024 final, but they failed to put their foot on the gas when in control. Galway had lost an early lead, clocked seven wides, been overtaken by the favourites with a great goal from Alan Walsh, and you might have felt a new team will crumble a little bit.

Jason Rabbitte showed unbelievable leadership for a young fella to get them in only a point down.

Getting a cup of tea at half-time, the consensus was that Cork would push on in the second half. It had parallels with leading against Tipp last year. Comments will go out that no two seasons are the same, but there is 100% a deja vu feeling with this Cork panel that when in control, they can't put teams away and really nail them in the big games.

After the initial Galway blitz, Cork brought the deficit back from eight to six points. That’s nothing in any game of hurling, but you get this air of inevitability with this Cork team. Irrespective of the margin, when this type of game goes against them, when they start to lose the individual battles, and they start to get a breakdown in their puck-outs, they collapse.

I find the psychology fascinating. The talk earlier in the year was that the psychological barrier is now broken. But sometimes it comes down to individual leadership.

I know it's all about the collective, but going back to my own playing days, when we were under the cosh, Brian Corcoran would decide to grab the game by the scruff of the neck and rouse the crowd.

That may be a bad comparison because he was a generational player, but it feels like the last couple of years, and again on Saturday, that type of player, that type of attitude, is in scarce supply.

We’d Brian Hayes dominating and Shane Barrett got a couple of good scores, but in the second half, you wanted someone else to step up and grab the game.

When the tide is turning, heart and liathróidí come into play. Conor Whelan was an example for Galway. He looked lethargic in the first half, but he stepped up, got his three points, and worked like an absolute dog. There's no question about ability, but sometimes I wonder, do we have players like that?

There were more Galway fellas putting the head down and the shoulder to the wheel. It wasn't terribly flashy, but it showed awful guts. On the day, Cork didn't show the same attitude, application, or guts.

Even when Daithí Burke was struggling and Cillian Trayers took time to limit Hayes’ influence, Micheál Donoghue trusted their defending. Do Cork trust our defenders as much?

We're dragging fellas ashore the minute they get a yellow card. I know the way the game has gone, and Galway are so good on the solo run that you could be tempting fate, and obviously Darragh Fitzgibbon got caught with two yellows, but should Cork trust our defenders a little bit more?

Do we really get the benefit we hope from the sweeper? Should we have pushed up more?

With two midfielders coming back from injury, Tommy O’Connell and Tim O’Mahony didn't have the energy that they'd normally exert in a game. Gavin Lee and Tiernan Killeen got a scoring return with 0-3 between them and were integral to the give-and-go passing game.

Were Cork a bit hasty in bringing back injured players? Could they have shifted Darragh to midfield and made room for William Buckley? If we weren't trusting our long-distance striking, Cork could have run at them more. I felt the game was made for William to go on these long, mazy solo runs.

I wrote after the Offaly game that aerially Cork were very strong and maybe they should place greater trust in their fetching ability. I may have gotten that wrong because in that second half, Galway guys, who aren’t any taller than the Cork guys, had total control. Whether their technique was better or their grá for the ball was stronger, Cork were absolutely blown away in the skies and on the ground. Our appetite in that second half looked non-existent.

It's very easy to castigate players or find fault, but the hardest job for Ben O’Connor will be drawing up solutions and changes to improve for 2027.

There’s a serious repair job needed. For the progress Cork made this year, they have no titles to show. Cork have players who again performed poorly in the litmus test of Croke Park. The solution will require a mix of everything because that was a damaging defeat.

Unless they find that bit of cuteness or manliness or on-field game management, it could be, again, what’s another year?