Rebels playing a dangerous game of brinkmanship
Sluggish starts will catch up on JBM’s men
IN THE new summer blockbuster Edge of Tomorrow, Tom Cruise plays the action hero stuck in a time loop, a sort of Groundhog Day with aliens and CGI effects. Well, if Jimmy Barry Murphy ever wants to kill an evening and head to the cinema, he’ll identify with a character reliving the same moment over and over.
When Waterford sprinted into an early lead in the drawn Munster quarter-final in Thurles, that old sense of déjà vu must have dropped slowly on the Cork management team. Not for the first time, the Rebels had given the opposition a head start. How they managed to claw back the distance by the finish line is a mystery in itself after trailing early in the second half by nine points.
Even by their own standards as notoriously slow starters, this was right up there.
‘One day we won’t be able to get those points back,’ is Patrick Horgan’s blunt admission. ‘It’s a quick start we have to get and we just can’t get it at the moment. If we can sort that we’ll give ourselves a chance of winning any game.’
Take last year’s Munster final against Limerick. Paudie O’Brien scored the first point for the Treaty men who drove into an early 0-3 to 0-1 lead after just three minutes. Ten minutes later Cork hauled it back level but by then, Limerick had their tails up, knowing they have nothing to fear on the day. A first Munster title since 1996 would be theirs by the finish.
Compare that then to the drawn AllIreland final. The first scores of the match? Points by Darach Honan and Colin Ryan of Clare. Seamus Harnedy did his best to settle Cork before John Conlon put the Banner into that familiar 0-3 to 0-1 lead with just seven minutes on the clock.
No surprise then the score updates at Semple Stadium the last time out had the distinct feeling of Groundhog Day to them. When Brian O’Sullivan clipped over a sweet point for Waterford six minutes in, it left Cork trailing by – yes, you guessed it – 0-3 to 0-1.
Except on this occasion, Cork couldn’t staunch the bleeding. Jamie Nagle added another quality score from distance before rookie Tadhg Burke announced his presence with his first score in Championship hurling.
And so the gap stretched to four before Cork put anything resembling a significant passage of play together.
So how does Barry Murphy ensure the same pattern doesn’t develop at Thurles in this afternoon’s replay? It’s clearly something the panel, and management, have discussed.
‘It’s a collective matter in terms of a very poor start,’ concedes Barry Murphy. ‘Against Tipperary, was it 10 points down in the National League quarterfinal?
THAT’S VERY poor starts. Not good enough. You’re not giving yourself a fair chance of playing yourself into the game, of giving guys confidence. We’ve had players suffering from that by the end, being substituted. That does create its own difficulties.
‘It’s a comfort that we came back to draw; it’s certainly not a comfort that the performance was along the lines of our League displays. Our form in the League was not good, even though we were promoted.
‘I am worried that we haven’t yet shown the spark that we showed last year. I hope that the reprieve that we got the last day will help to focus their minds – and our minds. We’ll take responsibility for the display as well – we’re in charge.
‘So I would hope that we’d see a far greater display. Because certainly what we’ve seen all year is far below the standard we aspire to.
‘Lots of teams try different little tactics and innovations. I don’t think it was down to tactics the last day, it was more a frame of mind that we weren’t at it as much as Waterford.’
If Barry Murphy’s side has a saving grace, it is being able to stay alive under heavy shelling. ‘We have tremendous character in the team,’ he adds. ‘We don’t die easily. Our players were nine points down but 1-19 and with a lot of forwards not performing, that’s very encouraging. We have to take the positives out of it as well.
‘If a guy starts very well the next day, he can transform his season. We’re hoping that happens with us.’
In the All-Ireland final replay, Cork died with their boots on, eventually running out of comebacks within the course of an eight-goal thriller.
They can’t keep living on the edge and hope to get away with it.