Minors in need of a miracle to reach the final

MUNSTER MHC ROUND 4 Cork V Waterford Sunday, June 17 Semple Stadium, noon

WE have some good news and some bad news with regard to the Cork minor hurling team’s chances of qualification for the Munster final.

On the one hand, they’re not yet out, despite defeats to Tipperary and Limerick in their last two games; the flipside of that is that they must beat Waterford by 25 points or more in Thurles on Sunday to make the provincial decider.

The minor championship is round on the same round-robin format as the senior, but while third place in the senior ensures qualification for the All-Ireland series, in the Under 17 grade only the top two teams make the final.

Ahead of the final round of fixtures – Clare take on Limerick in Cusack Park in Ennis in the other game – Cork and Clare are on two points with Tipp, Limerick and Waterford each on four.

Were Cork and Clare both to win, there would be a five-way tie while a Cork victory and a Limerick triumph would see the Shannonsiders through to the final and Tipp, Cork and Waterford on four points behind them.

If two teams finish level on points, the headto-head record between the pair is used as the deciding factor, but if more than two are tied, scoring-difference comes into play and, unfortunately, this is where Cork are at a big disadvantage.

John Considine’s side have scored 1-57 against a concession total of 8-48, leaving them with a minus twelve differential. At the other end of the spectrum are Tipperary, who have two wins and two losses but have scored twelve more points than they have conceded.

When Cork met Tipp in Thurles, they home side won by 4-15 to 1-14 and every point there has had a huge knockon effect for Cork in trying to overturn the deficit. For instance, a five-point defeat in Thurles would mean that Cork ‘only’ needed to win by 15 on Sunday, or a two-point loss to Tipp would leave Cork with minus-four now and Tipp on plus-four, giving Cork a target of a nine-point win against Waterford.

Obviously, such hypotheses are pointless at this stage and John Considine and his management and players must just focus first of all on beating Waterford, no easy task in itself as the Déise are coming in off the back of two wins on the trot, having seemingly perfected the art of the late fightback.

Starting off with a loss away to Clare, Waterford looked to be down and out against Tipp in Limerick when Cork’s tormentor Seán Hayes scored a goal to put the Premier County 11 points ahead with nineteen minutes remaining. However, the Déise fought back and triumphed by 2-13 to 3-9, Michael Kiely scoring 2-5.

Perhaps the Gaelic Grounds hold a mystical power for Waterford, for they managed something similar against the home side a week later. While Waterford led by 0-13 to 0-9 early in the second half, Limerick came back strongly only for goals in injury time from David Byrne and Gavin Corbett to earn the win for Waterford, 2-17 to 1-13 the final score.

For Cork, the key area to improve is the obvious one: get more scores. Having let in seven goals in their first two games against Clare and Tipp, they played with an extra defender at home to Limerick and, while that helped to stem the traffic through the middle, it meant that they lacked a body in attack, with the natural knock-on effect of not registering enough scores. There have been moments of positivity and Pádraig Power and Shane Barrett have shone in attack at times but one goal scored in three games is a very poor return and is indicative of where Cork’s problems lie.

In addition, after the Limerick game, Cork manager John Considine was asked about the team’s struggles against more physical opposition and he admitted that it had been noticeable.

That calls into question the merits and demerits of the development squad system, but that is of course a debate for another day. Cork can at least prepare for Sunday’s game knowing that they still have a chance, however remote.

If they can get a good start, then perhaps the unthinkable may materialise. Even if the miracle outcome doesn’t come to pass, there is still pride to play for.