‘He’s a fantastic free-taker’ – Meyler hails Horgan after his stunning 16-point haul
CORK’S biggest lead of Saturday night’s Division 1A clash with Clare in Páirc Uí Rinn was the three-point advantage they held at the end.
Despite only scoring 1-5 from play, the Rebels picked up their first win of the campaign, thanks largely to 16 points – 15 frees – from Patrick Horgan.
The sides were level on 13 occasions but Cork powered on strongly at the finish.
While relegation isn’t an issue this year due to the restructuring of the league for 2020, Cork manager John Meyler wasn’t using that as an excuse in the wake of defeats to Kilkenny and Wexford.
“I don’t think that way,” he said. “Wesetoutwithapurposeat the start to try to win matches, be competitive and introduce new players.
“I think we’ve introduced one or two players, I think Tim O’Mahony has really settled in at centre-back. The older players are still contributing as well, Patrick Horgan and those, so it’s trying to get the balance between the young and the old fellas and trying to win matches and be competitive as well.”
Present
A crowd of 4,737 was present in Páirc Uí Rinn – 7,089 had been there earlier in the day as Midleton CBS and St Francis College, Rochestown won the Dr Harty and Tom Collum Cups respectively, the Munster PPS A and B titles.
Following the feel-good factor of that – both finals were all-Cork affairs – with a win was important, in Meyler’s view.
“It’s another massive game for Cork hurling together with the two colleges games in Páirc Uí Rinn today,” he said.
“That makes it three wins for Cork. The Fitzgibbon guys are to come back after next weekend, and it’s great to see them in the final with UCC, so many Cork players.”
Séamus Harnedy’s fortuitous goal on 22 minutes – a delivery towards the square which was allowed to travel over the line – brought Cork level at 1-3 to 0-6, having been outplayed early on, with Tony Kelly and John Conlon in sparkling form in the Clare attack.
By half-time, the sides were still tied, 1-6 to 0-9, with Horgan having scored all of Cork’s points.
The second half was a to-and-fro affair, with Kelly and Ian Galvin on song as Clare continued to weave nice patterns, but they were never able to establish a two-point lead and undisciplined defending was punished by the metronomic Horgan. “That’s what Horgan is there for,” Meyler said.
“He’s a fantastic free-taker. We need Conor Lehane, Aidan Walsh, Jamie Coughlan and those, and it was great to see Alan Cadogan back after a long lay-off, that’s tremendous for Cork hurling at the moment, to see him come in and play 20 minutes.”
The game was again tied, 1-16 to 0-19, after Horgan’s 15th point when Kelly looked to have restored Clare’s advantage with a point from a tight angle, only for the decision to be rescinded and a wide signalled.
From there, Cork drove on, scoring four of the game’s final five points, three for Horgan and centre-back Tim O’Mahony also on target.
Despite the loss, Clare joint manager Donal Moloney found positives.
“I don’t know what we scored from play, we got a lot from play over the 70 minutes,” he said.
“But those frees were keeping Cork in the game.
“Any time we got a point ahead they got an equaliser, and in addition they probably got a bigger impact off the bench than we did in the last few minutes.
“We got a good return from our full-forward line, it’s good to see John (Conlon) coming back to form, and Tony Kelly was in good form as well tonight, so there were a lot of good performances for us
– we were pleased with a lot of the performances we got this evening.”
Moloney is keen to work on their defending ahead of the Banner clash with Wexford next week.
“We were going well in the first half, in fairness, and we did a lot of great hurling,” he said.
“For three of the four quarters of the game, we were probably on top, but the frees probably kept Cork in the game.
“The Fitzgibbon’s got another week to run, and we probably won’t have the lads for the Wexford game anyway. That’s what we’ll be focusing on for the week.”
Next up for the Rebels is a trip to the Gaelic Grounds on Sunday to take on All-Ireland champions Limerick. It’s a challenge Meyler is looking forward to.
“Limerick is going to be very hard again now next Sunday, a very tough game,” he said.
“Because of the weather, we haven’t done much match hurling in our training sessions, but we got a good bit done in the two weeks since the Wexford game, and we’ve improved.
“We’ll improve again this week but we’ll have to, because Limerick are very good, it’s an important game.”