CATS CURTAIN
Shefflin sees red as rampant Rebels show their class to bring champs’ summer to an inglorious end
Hreports from Semple Stadium
URLING’S summer of revolution claimed its greatest team yesterday, in the process confirming that what we are left with is not a Championship race but a lottery.
Cork remain the last of the aristocrats still standing but at this stage the penny will have dropped that there is no point leaning on tradition for comfort as they eyeball Dublin in the All-Ireland semi-final in a fortnight’s time.
They have something far more precious dangling from their pelts now; the scalp of a Kilkenny team that was finally put to rest.
Even allowing for what had gone before and the prevailing sense that the champions have been a pale and fragile version of themselves ever since their defeat in Leinster to Dublin, what unfolded here was seismic in nature.
This is Brian Cody’s 15th season and it will be the first time that his team have not made it to the last four. And while for obvious reasons there will be no- one in a rush to bury them, reason demands that we see this as the end of an era.
The game didn’t necessarily swing on it — Cork were the better team from pillar to post yesterday — but as Henry Shefflin was sent off in the final minute of the first half, you sensed just about every one of the 33,383 paying customers was squinting hard in the belief that the hurler of a generation was taking his leave.
In that sense, it was perhaps fitting that even on a day when he was barely recognisable as the player he was as recently as 12 months ago, he still managed to hog the limelight.
Barry Kelly handed him a yellow card for apparently chopping down with his stick at a Cork hand in a f rantic scramble i n the 12th minute. Then in the final minute of the half he clumsily tackled Jamie Coughlan, the Cork player fell as he was caught around the neck and Shefflin was done for.
Cody argued afterwards that Shefflin should not have been sent off, but the truth was that had he stayed on Cork would still have their measure. They led by 0-10 to 0-6 at the time but it was the fact that he had started in the first place was an indication of just how desperate Kilkenny were.
The 34-year-old had not started a game since last year’s All-Ireland final and as recently as two weeks ago he was woefully off the pace, in terms of fitness and touch, against Waterford and had to be taken back off. How he went from there to starting inside two weeks was a mystery, but perhaps Cody placed his faith in the hope that the great man’s presence alone might give them an edge.
If that was the reason, it ignored the narrative of a season that has refused to bow to reason or reputation, and Cork were hardly in awe.
It is bordering on the disrespectful to leave it this late to acclaim the Rebels because they hurled quite magnificently yesterday. Their dominance extended to every line on the field but most obviously in the half-back line where William Egan and Tom Kenny — the latter on Shefflin — set the tempo.
Shefflin’s sending-off represented a welcome flip-flop of fortune — just two weeks ago in the Munster final they lost Patrick Horgan to a red card on the stroke of half-time — and t he decision by t he Central Hearings Committee to overturn that red card proved pivotal here.
The Glen Rovers man provided Cork with the menace they needed as he notched 11 points (three from play) from 12 shots at the targets. It was an exhibition of shooting that was in sharp contrast to Kilkenny, who used three different free-takers in Eoin Larkin, Shefflin — who snatched and missed a routine effort from in front of the posts — and Richie Power, with five of their seven first-half wides coming from placed balls.
While Kilkenny stuttered and stumbled, Cork reeked of conviction. They led from the seventh minute when Horgan swept over a point from play and when that lead was threatened they protected it heroically.
Within a minute of Shefflin’s sending-off, Walter Walsh was given an eyeful of the Cork net but when he pulled the trigger, his shot was beaten away by the diving body of Cork full back Stephen McDonnell.
Within three minutes of a frantic restart, Kilkenny had a penalty after Shane O’Neill, who should have been cautioned for a first-half incident with Walter Walsh, pulled down Eoin Larkin. Play continued while a full- scale row had developed in the middle of the field between Lorcan McLoughlin and Michael Fennelly.
Power converted initially but it was correctly ruled out after Tommy Walsh encroached on the square, and on the retake, Anthony Nash produced two saves of stun- ning quality to deny Power first and then Walsh.
From there, Cork, mindful of their own experience a fortnight ago, c l osed t he game out with some conviction, with Conor O’Sullivan thriving in his role as the free man. Despite their numerical advantage, their work ethic remained manic — Pa Cronin was quite outstanding in the second period — and for a time they threatened to humiliate the champions.
Five unanswered points from Horgan (two), Conor Lehane, sub Stephen Moylan and Luke O’Farrell left them leading by 0-17 to 0-9 with 10 minutes left on the clock.
It was to Kilkenny’s credit that they refused to go quietly, not least through the combined efforts of Paul Murphy, Tommy Walsh and Kieran Joyce.
They kept going but they needed to find a goal, and when Nash flicked away Michael Fennelly’s effort six minutes from the end, the door slammed shut on the contest and, most likely, on an era.
MICHEAL CLIFFORD