Rejuvenated Rebels rediscover themselves

RIGHT then it didn’t seem to matter, all that usual caution, bred into GAA folk practically from birth, to never, ever allow yourself to get too carried away by anything short of silverware on a September Sunday. Aristocrats especially tend to take that approach and there are no bluer bloods than those clad in the blood and bandages.

This, however, was no time for reticence. Rather instead it was a time to rejoice, to exult, a time to let go and get carried away. The Rebels are back, why not celebrate it? Why not stream with abandon onto the Semple Stadium turf to hail the conquering heroes?

At the end of seventy minutes – although we all know it was about much more than just that – the Cork faithful couldn’t contain their enthusiasm. This was a people rediscovering itself anew.

Notions of Corkness and the state of the Cork senior hurling team are tied up in ways that us outsiders can scarcely comprehend. The team’s struggles over the past three years have cast something of a pall.

That natural Corkonian confidence seemed to have been dented by it. There looked to be an increasing acceptance that Cork’s place on the pecking order wasn’t what it once was or wouldn’t be again for some time to come.

Behind the scenes and below the radar a lot of good work has been undertaken, albeit with the not unreasonable expectation that it would take time for all that work to come to fruition. This year and this result seems to have come well ahead of schedule.

The old Christy Ring line about Cork – that they come, like mushrooms, overnight – seems apt. Except, of course, that there’s more to it than that. Outside of the handful of debuants, most of these Cork players have been around for longer than it takes for a mushroom to germinate.

A lot of the credit for their development in the last twelve months has to go to Kieran Kingston. At the outset his task was an unenviable one, with many people viewing it as an exercise in holding station until a new generation of hurlers could develop. Nothing that happened in 2016 suggested otherwise.

Kingston never bought into that narrative. To his mind the only reason to manage Cork – the only reason for being Cork – is to win. It would have been very easy to bang the drum of transition, using it for cover when things went wrong.

The Cork team we saw on Sunday afternoon was not one in any way interested in transition and moral victories. There was a steel to Cork, there was ice in their veins, a cold-blooded will to win.

In that they seemed to catch Tipperary off guard. Cork were ravenous, Cork were ferocious, Tipperary were nowhere near as tuned in. Just take a look at the puck-out stats. According to Christy O’Connor in the Echo, Cork won eighteen of their own and twenty two of Tipperary’s (over half, imagine that).

You didn’t need to the stats to tell you that. All you needed was the evidence of your own eyes. Cork, on the half-back line in particular, were so alive to the breaks that Tipp scarcely stood a chance when Darren Gleeson went long.

Matt Ellis – our man of the match – with Christopher Joyce and Mark Coleman alongside him was imperious. The absence of Patrick ‘Bonner’ Maher to Tipperary was clearly telling, but we must avoid falling into the trap of whataboutery.

Cork were great... but what about the Bonner? Cork were great and all... but what about Jason Forde? How might the game have panned out had he been available instead of being suspended for jostling with Davy Fitzgerald in the league semi-final?

Going down that route would be to deny Cork’s agency. The Rebels were vibrant and, at times, quite electric. Remember too it’s not like Kingston’s men had it all their own way.

When John O’Dwyer found the back of the net with just a little over ten minutes remaining it felt like a real turning point – by the way what a miraculous pass that was by Seamus Callinan for the goal – the type of thing that could dash the fragile hopes of a callow young side. Cork’s response over the following ten minutes showed that despite their relative inexperience – Colm Spillane, Coleman, Shane Kingston, Darragh Fitzgibbon and Luke Meade all made their championship debuts on Sunday – Cork are anything but callow. Certainly not with Conor Lehane leading the line at centre-forward. There’s a steeliness there that few of us suspected Cork had. Make no mistake about it, they’re back. What that doesn’t mean is that they’re all of a sudden in the running for that aforementioned September sliverware.

This Cork team still has plenty to prove, to itself and to everybody else, starting with the semi-final against Waterford next month. The Deise remain favourites. Until Cork back up what they did on Sunday, an element of doubt will remain.

One swallow does not a summer make and all that.