Monkey off the back but Cork ‘need to improve’
Crisis has gone hand-in-hand with the Rebels all year
IN THE presence of greatness, the Cork hurlers absorbed every word that tripped from the tongue of Brian Cody when he came calling to their dressing room on Sunday evening.
The exchange visits of managers to team dressing rooms is one of the GAA’s quirky but intimate traditions, usually commanding politeness but not always open ears.
Sunday was different for Cork, as for the first time in nine years Brian Cody made the visit to their dressing room as the beaten manager, and for the Cork players it was one of those moments that needed to be drunk in. But he also sowed a seed in their minds before he left.
‘Everyone stood up fairly quickly because he just has that bit of an aura about him that is different,’ admitted Cork midfielder Daniel Kearney.
‘He was just saying that nothing is won — and we know that we have nothing won either — and if we lose against Dublin that no one is going to remember that we beat Kilkenny in the quarter-final.’
In Kilkenny’s absence, the market yesterday was left with a scrambled head, and for some it was beyond reason to make sense of it. One bookmaker chain, in an unprecedented move, declared all remaining four teams, Cork, Dubl in, Clare and Limerick, joint favourites to lift the Liam MacCarthy Cup — recognition that how the remainder of this season pans out is beyond comprehension. Where everyone else sees confusion, the players only see opportunity.
‘That’s the way the Championship has been going this year with Dublin winning Leinster, Limerick winning Munster, it’s wide open now and whoever can be the most consistent and put in two huge performances, they’re the ones that are going to come out on top,’ added Lorcán McLoughlin, Kearney’s midfield partner.
Cork will not lack for investors in going all the way, partly because tradition is on their side, but primarily because they are the ones who have come from the furthest back to make the last four.
Crisis has walked hand-in-hand with them all season, with players defecting, retiring and getting injured, while their results were so uninspiring that until last Sunday they had claimed just two wins — against Tipperary in the League and a Munster semi-final win over Clare.
But while the outside obsessed about Cork’s spring of discontent which ended in relegation from the top tier, Kearney saw enough in their campaign to believe the team was close to the breakthrough and that he had what it took to play at the highest level.
The Sarsfields clubman admitted that it took this year’s finalround League fixture against the Cats — Cork lost by two points — to convince him.
‘ I thought the game against Kilkenny in Nowlan Park was our best performance all year and I thought I did really well that day.
‘I took a lot of confidence from that game because I thought if I could play like that against the best team in Ireland in their home pitch then I shouldn’t have any fear of anyone,’ added Kearney.
While the market might insist that they have no better than an even-money shot at making it to the final, Cork’s vast army of supporters will, at a minimum, expect the Rebels to see off Dublin to set up an all-Munster All-Ireland final against either Clare or Limerick for just the second time in history. But McLoughlin knows that Cork will face a very different challenge to Kilkenny in the semi-final.
‘ They [ Dublin] have quality, they’re a big physical team and Anthony Daly is after adding a bit of steel to them so they’re going to be a huge battle again.
‘They’re putting up big scores but I think their big attribute is their fitness levels, their physique, so they’re going to be hitting hard, they’re going to move the ball quick.
‘Watching them against Kilkenny, they matched them physically and their fitness levels are sky high. We’re going to have to match all that,’ he said.
And more, says Kearney, who believes that the Rebels will have to raise their game to an even higher level to make the final.
‘The monkey is off our back after this but there is still room to improve.’