BEFORE TODAY’S GAME, there was a sense that Cork were going up to Thurles more in hope than anything else.
But hope is not a strategy and put simply, that was as bad a performance as I’ve seen from a Cork side in a long time.
They didn’t match Tipperary in any department. Physically they were blown out of it, hurling-wise they weren’t at the races, and tactically they played a sweeper which they wouldn’t be used to.
It just didn’t work out at all, but even if they had gone with a flat 15, it was still a poor performance all over.
Kieran Kingston’s plan was clearly to keep Cork in the game for as long as he could and keep Tipp scores to a minimum, and then maybe have a cut off them for the last 10 or 15 minutes.
If that’s the idea, it is fine playing with a sweeper, but Cork stuck with it right until the end, even when the game was gone well away from them, and that was a poor decision.
The conditions dictated that it was never going to be that high-scoring a game. With that wind and rain, it was always going to be a day for the backs.
And every time the Tipp backs got the ball, they were in control. The likes of Ronan Maher, Padraic Maher and Cathal Barrett were well on top throughout. The ball that they played into their forwards was far superior, the movement was excellent, and it allowed them to create far more scoring chances.
Going up there, you’d have said that Cork’s six forwards were their strongest unit but the only fella that really stood up was Alan Cadogan. He got a couple of points in each half, and he was getting out in front, winning ball, and he was the only one that came out with a bit of credit.
Even though Cork had a bad league, down here we were hearing that they had trained hard and they’d be better come championship — but they carried that league form over into today and they made life very easy for Tipp.
John McGrath was superb on his debut. He got one point in the first half but the amount of chances that he was able to put on a plate for his team-mates, just by his sheer work rate, was outstanding. He was moving the whole time, comfortable when the ball came into him, and he made the right decisions.
‘Bubbles’ O’Dwyer was excellent as well and the damage was done long before he was taken off and given a rest.
Himself and Seamus Callanan would have been frustrated a bit by the league campaign. It’s not that they’d feel like they have a point to prove or anything, but lads like them just want to be out hurling all the time, and you could see their hunger and drive out there today.
There was a passage about 15 minutes into the first half when Callanan nudged Damien Cahalane out of the way with a shoulder before sticking over a great score from a desperate angle; then in the next 50/50, he got out in front of Cahalane and set up John McGrath with a super flick of the hurl; and then Bubbles scored a third point.
That all happened in the space of a minute or two, and it summed up the difference between the two teams.
Cork did have a glimpse of a chance in that second half when they scored four points in a row, and then Patrick Horgan had the 20m free where he went for goal.
Any team that has a bit of belief in themselves would just pop it over the bar at that stage and close the gap to six points with 20 minutes to play. Cork were panicking at that stage and that was clear proof.
Even though they were comfortable winners, Tipp won’t feel that they played to their potential at all — and again, the conditions really didn’t help.
But it was a typical first day out for them. They did a lot of things right but they’ll come away from there thinking that Cork were poor and they’ve a lot to work on.
They won’t think that they’re the finished article or that they’ve started to peak or anything like that. It was a job well done but they have loads to work on.
All the guys who made their debuts had fine solid debuts and John McGrath was outstanding.
We know this Tipp side are better hurlers than Cork, and a good barometer of any team is the strength of their bench. The guys that they brought on all contributed: Niall O’Meara, Bonner Maher, Jason Forde. In some instances, Cork didn’t even have players of that quality in their starting 15.
Being able to bring lads of that calibre in off the bench didn’t make the difference today but looking ahead to a Munster semi-final against Limerick in three weeks’ time, and in tighter games going forward, it will be a huge asset for Michael Ryan.
All of Cork’s failings for the last few years were there to see again today: the lack of a dedicated training facility, the damage that’s being done by the structure of the Cork county championship, and the difficulty in producing a consistent flow of talent from minor and U21 teams.
Picking this team back up now will be a big challenge for Kieran Kingston but he has experienced guys around him in Pat Ryan, Diarmuid O’Sullivan and Declan O’Sullivan — they’re good guys to have around the panel.
He did say that it would take a bit of time to get Cork back to the top table but you’d expect a better performance than that. Even when they took beatings, Cork always had pride and came back better.
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