REBELS MUST FIND A MEAN STREAK TO SAVE RYAN
Cork need to finally play to their potential against Treaty to keep season alive in a game that should be free-to-air
Picture the scene in the 71st minute last Saturday evening. Pat Ryan is watching Waterford edge towards a second Munster success in Walsh Park as another nail is hammered into Cork’s coffin.
Then, boom. Tipperary rise from the dead with 1-1 in jig time to secure an unlikely draw and Ryan is a different man, with fresh oxygen flowing through him and his Rebels.
They had no hope, but now they are full of it. As Andy Dufresne said to Red in The Shawshank Redemption, “hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies”.
Sometimes seasons can turn in the blink of an eye, and if Cork were to win tonight, it would turn the whole Munster SHC upside down and they would be firmly back in the mix.
They were in the same position two years ago before back-to-back wins secured qualification, and they must do that again.
I’m expecting a big performance because it’s game over if they don’t deliver. It’s game over for this year, game over for some of their great veterans and probably game over for Ryan.
The Cork public will have no forgiveness if they fail to get out of Munwe ster two years in a row. The absence of Ciarán Joyce is exactly what they didn’t need. There are times when your mind is changed significantly after a team announcement, and he is the last player Ryan wanted to be missing.
Centre-back is the one position where they have that solid foundation you need, albeit he hasn’t been up to his usual high standards so far this year.
We’ve seen that Diarmuid O’Sullivan (full-back) and Ronan Curran (centre-back) have been the hardest two players for Cork to replace over the last 20 years. That’s how important the spine of your defence is. So, who is going to fill that void at No 6?
It’s a big head-scratcher for Ryan. And what will Limerick do when they know he’s not there? They will surely ask more questions of a rookie centre-back, most likely Rob Downey, with Cian Lynch probably trying to cause his usual chaos.
Mobile
Ger Millerick has often gone well against Limerick when detailed on Lynch and I’d be surprised if he doesn’t start. Whether Downey is mobile enough for Lynch or David Reidy remains to be seen.
Joyce will be a colossal loss and it makes Cork’s task even harder, but sometimes others take the bull by the horns when you’re missing your big players.
It happened us in the 2004 Munster semi-final when we played Tipperary without Ken McGrath. Tony Browne went in centre-back and it should have been a disaster when Tony went off injured.
It wasn’t, though, as Brian ‘Bull’ Phelan stepped up to the mark and we got the win. Maybe missing Joyce can be the push that’s needed to get more out of other players.
Who would have said that Kilkenny would stop the Rebel treble in 2006 without JJ Delaney? Who could have imagined that Clare would win this year’s league without Tony Kelly? Other players stepped up in those cases and the same needs to happen tonight.
Last year’s blockbuster at the Gaelic Grounds should give them plenty of confidence, too. They were with Limerick every step of the way before falling by a point.
Surviving that epic battle ignited the Treaty’s summer, and a win in the Páirc would do the exact same for Cork. There will be no element of Limerick complacency and John Kiely will be eager to confirm their qualification tonight while also knocking out a dangerous opponent.
We know what we’ll get from Limerick, but Cork are a mystery. It’ll have to be the Rebels that took to the field against Clare, plus another 10 or 15pc if they are to prevail.
Cork can hurt Limerick with their speed, but they’ve got to be willing to throw their bodies on the line and get down and dirty if they are to succeed.
Scoring hasn’t been a problem for them, but the tallies conceded are off the charts (a staggering 5-51 in two games) and that will have to be reduced if they are to stand a chance.
They must also finish with 15 on the field and need the right pitch between control and aggression. That still might not be enough, though, with the green machine set to march on.
This game really whets the appetite, but it’s a crying shame it’s not free-to-air. It’s baffling how lessons haven’t been taken from last year when Clare’s first three games were behind a paywall and
went three weeks without any live games on television.
Cork’s season could be over without anyone seeing them live on telly and it makes no sense to be starving people of hurling. We need more, not less. GAAGO coverage is great if you can get it, but many pubs and hotels are still not showing these games, while your broadband quality must also be very high. With the short window of hurling, why are people being closed off from watching our beautiful game? Something has to change for 2025.
The fact that there is no live broadcast anywhere of Dublin and Antrim this afternoon in Parnell Park is just bananas as well. This is a huge game with that third spot in Leinster up for grabs.
We all thought Leinster was going to be a formality, but Antrim ripped up the script against Wexford. The big question now is whether Darren Gleeson’s men can back it up.
They are no longer the surprise packets. There’s pressure to deliver now, while their results on the road have been nothing like their Corrigan Park form.
Dublin have all of their big names back and it’ll be interesting to see if Micheál Donoghue goes with Eoghan O’Donnell at centre-forward again after trying him there against Carlow.
I fancy the Dubs to get the job done as they move one step closer to qualification.