Rebels finish strongly to triumph
MUNSTER SHC SEMI-FINAL Cork 0-23 Waterford 1-15
VICTORY over Waterford at Thurles last Sunday removed any lingering doubts about Cork’s emergence as genuine championship contenders.
Despite accounting for Tipperary four weeks ago, those doubts remained ahead of the Munster semi final showdown with Waterford, with many suggesting the Rebels had caught the All-Ireland champions with their guard down.
They came up trumps against the odds once again, however, with a performance abounding in confidence and desire, not to mention a degree of skill that Waterford simply couldn’t match.
It was brimful of character and resilience as well, given that they might have had three goals in the first half, conceded one at a critical stage in the second half, and were reduced to fourteen players with eight minutes of regulation time remaining.
The manner in which they made light of those setbacks was worthy of the utmost admiration, and, in the final analysis, they weren’t in the least bit flattered by their winning margin of five points.
Having now claimed the scalp of two teams rated among the top four in the country last year, Cork are surely entitled to feel that nothing is beyond them at this stage.
Selector Pat Hartnett didn’t dismiss the suggestion that anything is possible when it was put to him after the game, although he was quick to stress it would be unwise to get too carried away with what has been achieved to date.
“I wouldn’t lose the run of myself, because we’ve won nothing yet, and we’ll be up against a very good Clare team in the Munster final,” he remarked.
“We had quite a number of wides today, we had three goal-scoring opportunities which we didn’t take, and maybe in a tighter game that could have been costly. So, there’s areas we need to improve on, but, at the same time, it’s important to acknowledge this performance from the lads,” said Hartnett, who has been to keen to keep a lid on expectations all season.
“All during the league, we’ve tried to keep any sign of progress in context and control expectations, but you can’t keep things under wraps for too long, and I thought it was a super performance and a super result today.
“We’re absolutely delighted with it, not least because the lads showed they had great belief in their own ability and kept doing what was expected of them at stages of the game when the pressure came on.”
Cork enjoyed the better of the exchanges in the first half when Damien Cahalane – whose dominance against Waterford full forward Maurice Shanahan early on was a huge plus – and Mark Ellis provided a solid spine to the defence in which Mark Coleman excelled on the left flank.
At the other end, Seamus Harnedy and Patrick Horgan caused regular problems for the Waterford full back line, but, for all that, it was Waterford who went in at half time with their tails up.
The reason was that Waterford ‘keeper Seamus O’Keeffe had made a couple of superb saves from Alan Cadogan and Harnedy as the first half drew to a close, and the counter-attack following Harnedy’s foiled effort produced an equalising point from Kevin Moran.
With Horgan shooting narrowly wide with a goal-chance earlier, it meant that Cork could have gone in at the break with a commanding lead, but instead the teams were tied at 0-10 apiece, after Pauric Mahony failed to nudge Waterford ahead from a late free.
Shane Bennett squandered a golden opportunity for Waterford and Harnedy was again denied by Stephen O’Keeffe shortly after the restart before Cork established a four-point lead and were shaping up very much like winners. They were rocked back on their heels, however, after Maurice Shanahan goaled to earn Waterford parity, 0-15 to 1-12, in the 46th minute.
That the chance wouldn’t have come about had not the referee ignored a foul on Luke Meade in the lead-up to it made it all the harder for Cork to take, and the manner in which they responded was especially creditable on that account.
From the resultant puck-out, Seamus Harnedy earned a free converted by Patrick Horgan, and Conor Lehane quickly added another point after a shuddering tackle by Bill Cooper on Kevin Moran allowed Luke Meade to feed the Midleton ace, who generally made life very uncomfortable for Waterford centre-back Tadgh De Burca.
Alan Cadogan pushed Cork three-points ahead in the 53rd minute, and they never really looked back from there.
They were four points up when Colm Spillane received a second yellow card in the 62nd minute, but, with Waterford’s Pauric Mahony shooting wide from the ensuing free, it did nothing to unsettle them as they comfortably held the whiphand on the run-in, which included five minutes of additional time.