Tipp have some big issues to resolve
IT’S AN amateur game. Those quick to criticise the Tipperary players for having a few drinks after crashing out of the Munster Championship against Limerick should remember that. see no issue with players if they want to go and let off some steam. They’re not monks. They have wives, girlfriends, kids, work commitments – a load of commitments outside the whitewash. And there is more to life than hurling.
Sometimes a sit-down together, even a late-night one, can galvanise a team, help them to thrash it out with one another.
People are trying to make out that it’s something bigger than it is.
What the county’s defeat does do is make the qualifier draw intriguing. Nobody wants to go that way and Cork or Waterford will be desperate to avoid it.
The Championship atmosphere isn’t there with the qualifiers. Playing the likes of Antrim up in Portlaoise on a Saturday night in front of a small crowd can lead to a muted performance on the field. Still, I expect Tipperary to make it through to the All-Ireland quarter-final stage.
Who will join them through the back door? I suspect Waterford – but only if Cork show the same honesty that I saw in Limerick last Sunday.
There is a lack of honesty in the Cork team at the moment. I don’t mean that in a bad way because there is great individual talent but, to me, honesty equals work-rate equals victory.
And Jimmy Barry Murphy knows that the work-rate just isn’t there, particularly up front. They look like a team still suffering the hangover blues from the All-Ireland final. And the forwards are simply not pressing hard enough up the field. If the first fella doesn’t do it, the second fella won’t.
Tactically, there’s a big call to be made. In fairness to Waterford manager Derek McGrath, his hands were tied with injuries going into the drawn game. What he got out of the team was extraordinary.
Being written off was a great motivational tool and now Shane O’Sullivan is back at midfield after suspension which should enable Michael ‘Brick’ Walsh to spend more time in defence.
UP FRONT, Waterford are like a floating boat – they don’t stand still. The players will keep drifting, keep rotating. I don’t think Derek McGrath is long enough in the job to have another system of play perfected. And I think Cork have to go man-forman. Waterford’s half-forward line were dropping right out to midfield for Anthony Nash’s puck-outs and rather than sit-back, the Cork halfbacks have to follow them. Because when the ball broke, Waterford worked the extra man and were able to pick out the pass to the forward.
If Cork press the opposition high up the field, that won’t happen. The backs are capable of surviving even if it’s three on three. They’re intercounty players; they don’t need to be overly protected. Let them read the ball; attack the space.
You couldn’t fault the selectors in bringing in Bill Cooper after his impact the last day. I always thought he was a real talent with Youghal and with divisional side Imokilly but a back injury has ruled him out for the guts of two seasons.
A natural-born leader at centreforward, he’s a real team player. If I have a gripe with the Cork forwards at the moment, it’s that they are a bit selfish, a bit individualistic.
While Cooper pounced for a poach- er’s goal the last day, he won a great ball and laid it off for Alan Cadogan whose shot produced a superb save by the keeper – that shows what a team player he is.
He might bring a bit of energy to the thing because the Cork forward line have to up their intensity. Their work rate was very, very low when they hadn’t got the ball. In the AllIreland quarter-final against Kilkenny last year, the forwards worked like dogs.
If Cork bring that same honesty to the table, they’ll win. Otherwise, they’ll be joining Tipperary, who were again found wanting from midfield up against Limerick.
They’re missing an Eoin Kelly type leader or a fully-fit Lar Corbett. The star players of old such as Nicky English or Pat Fox, who could turn a game in an instant, just aren’t there.
APART from Patrick ‘Bonner’ Maher, whose work rate was superb, they just didn’t fire. Noel McGrath very disappointing. He was on a serious hurler in Seamus Hickey who just cleaned him out and looked happier in his rightful place at cornerback. He had the all-round game too when he followed McGrath out the field.
Limerick play the game the way it should be played. They don’t overthink it or over-complicate it tactically. It’s a gameplan based on pure honesty, on the players working their socks off all over the pitch. They’re old fashioned in a sense.
But boy did they deserve it. Shane Dowling’s goal was the turning point and they’ll fear no-one in the final.