Not much good without the real Cork
Sunday had all the trappings of the real deal, but without a real challenge from Cork, this wasn’t a Munster final worth the name, writes Damian Stack
NO butterflies. Nothing at all in the pit of the stomach. Heart-rate steady. Feet firmly planted on the deck. No nervous energy to set one or the other tapping. This is not what we’ve come to expect of the minutes before the throw-in to a Munster final.
Maybe it was simply that the woefully one-sided minor match had an anaesthetising effect, except that the feeling was no different before Peter Keane’s boys put the Banner to the sword by twenty four points.
It was the same all week. Looking for reasons to look forward instead of, you know, actually looking forward to it. There was a lot of talk of Cork coming and doing something special, something against the grain.
The trouble was there was never anything behind these hopes except for hope itself. Where was the evidence for it? In Cork’s mediocre at best National League campaign? Or in their struggles against Tipp and Waterford?
A couple of pundits and ex-players – most notably Darragh Ó Sé in the Irish Times
– tried to make a case for Cork, but one got the sense their heart wasn’t really in it – ‘peak yerra’ Ó Sé self-referentially called it – besides nobody was buying it.
And, yet, come 2pm on Sunday afternoon over thirty one thousand people had made their way into Fitzgerald Stadium. It says something for the enduring appeal of Cork and Kerry as a pairing that they did so.
Part of it has to have been tradition and nostalgia. We were reared – Cork and Kerry both – on Munster football finals in the shadow of the Reeks. More of it is just the desire for a day out in the sunshine.
And so they came.
A look out the press box down onto the terraces and across to the packed out stand and everything looked right with the world.
A familiar scene. Familiar teams in familiar colours marching behind Millstreet Pipe Band in time honoured fashion.
Not even that could rouse us, not even the anthem and the cheer that rises with a couple of lines still to go could. Something was lacking, something was missing.
Fear or hope or a combination of both we suppose.
The Kerry fans didn’t really fear Cork. The Cork fans didn’t really believe they could win, not against Kerry, not in Killarney, not with this Cork team.
The atmosphere flowed from both impulses and added up to something less than the whole. It started flat, it continued to be flat.
Kerry’s brilliant start didn’t exactly help matters. David Moran seizing the throw in and thundering down towards the scoreboard end raised Kerry blood briefly. As did the four
points in less than four minutes that followed.
Thereafter, however, a realisation seemed to set in that all was not what it seemed to be. This was a Potemkin Munster final. All facade. Scratch beneath the surface and there was no there there.
Kerry collected their fifth Munster title in succession with consummate ease. Even when Cork appeared to come relatively close to Kerry in the first half – at its worst the gap stood at six points – the sense was not of a game on a knife edge. The atmosphere, the mood of the crowd reflected this.
A goal for Cork was probably the only thing that could have changed the dynamic. Ian Maguire’s effort eleven minutes in, having burned David Moran, was the best chance Cork had of doing so. Brian Kelly’s save ensured the status quo remained.
By the time they crafted their second clear-cut goal scoring opportunity – Tomás Clancy’s effort off the side-netting four minutes into the second half – this race was all but run.
The Kingdom started the second half much as they had the first – the way Cork needed to, with power and pace and an aggression and an intensity. With four points on the bounce, again inside the opening three minutes, Kerry put the game to bed.
Clancy may have been able to resurrect it briefly, but that’s all it would have been: a stay of execution. Kerry were too good, too well-drilled, too hungry and too determined to let the game slip from their grasp.
And so the game staggered on to its inevitable conclusion. Fionn Fitzgerald’s injury necessitated an extra ten minutes of time at the end of ordinary time which nobody much welcomed.
Had Cork been within striking distance you could imagine a guttural roar rising for the Rebel rousers, instead, by then, Cork were eleven points down. It had turned into a box ticking exercise.
Munster finals aren’t supposed to be about box-ticking. They’re supposed to be about passion and colour and craic and this was no craic. Without Cork, the real Cork, the Cork that gets in Kerry’s face, the Cork that delights in sticking it to their neighbours, it isn’t much fun and this Cork, all due respect, isn’t that Cork.
Peadar Healy’s men didn’t get in Kerry’s face, not much anyway. They picked up just one card in the game – a slopply enough black card for Jamie O’Sullivan.
Where was the niggle? Where was the spite? The anger? The crankiness?
Cork seemed to accept their fate a little too easily. Look even at the free count. Kerry are often criticised for cynicism – and on Sunday they conceded a not insubstantial thirty one frees – but Cork could have done with a little cynicism on Sunday.
No yellow card, thirteen fewer frees conceded than Kerry, just seven frees conceded in a second half where they were outscored 1-12 to 0-8. This Cork team is far too nice. No inter-county football team should ever want to be nice. Kerry aren’t nice. Dublin aren’t nice. Tyrone aren’t nice.
Cork shouldn’t be either, nor do Kerry want them to be. The Kingdom happily collected the cup from Jerry O’Sullivan.
Eventually, however, it’ll get old and stale. Ultimately without a real challenge or challenger, without Cork challenging, what’s a Munster title worth?
A ticket to Croke Park and the quarter-finals and no more than that. It should mean more than that, much more.
If Cork don’t get their act together – and soon – then in the years to come thirty thousand people aren’t going to show up on the first Sunday in July for the annual joust between the two great rivals.
Tradition and nostalgia will only carry you so far.
This Cork team is far too nice. No inter-county team should ever want to be nice. Kerry aren’t nice. Dublin aren’t nice