REBELS ROCK THE BIG STAGE
Magnificent Cork boss Limerick to reignite their year
GLORY days. The Boss will do well to re-create the atmosphere that rocked Pairc Uí Chaoimh last night. This was the Munster hurling championship at its most dramatic and unpredictable right up until injury-time when Patrick Horgan’s penalty crowned a famous night for the Rebels.
This was as entertaining and enthralling as sport could be, and it was all behind a pay-wall, obscured from view for large parts of the general public. Our new Taoiseach gauged the mood correctly when he weighed in earlier this week. This is a game that should have been on television, for everyone to enjoy. The final moments conjured up the most extraordinary drama. A spirited Cork, roared on by a raucous crowd, had played all night like their summer demanded on this game – because it did.
But Limerick are inevitable. Such has been the giant green juggernaut’s dominance over the game of hurling that even when Cork went into the dressing-room with an eight-point lead at halftime, 2-15 to 1-10, there was always a sense that the All-Ireland champions would just find a way to win in the second-half.
And that is how it seemed to be turning out, after Seamus Flanagan completed his hat-trick and Limerick started to get the upper hand in the war zone of the middle third. When substitute Aidan O’Connor found the range with what seemed like an insurance point in added time, it looked like Limerick would win. As they always do.
But this is Munster hurling, so there is always an unexpected plot twist, room for yet more drama. After more than 75 breathless minutes, Shane Kingston was hauled to the ground by Kyle Hayes. Referee Sean Stack, who was superb all evening with the impossible job of trying to keep a handle on senior championship hurling, had no hesitation but to award a penalty and issue a black card to Hayes.
Horgan turned the game on its head with a wonderfuly-struck penalty that gave Nickie Quaid no chance. Brian Hayes sealed the most improbable, but dramatic, of comebacks with a wonderful point to underline that Cork are kicking and breathing in this championship yet. In front of almost 42.000 people by the Lee, they had survived the great green onslaught in the second-half and will live to fight another day.
Thousands of Rebel supporters streamed onto the pitch at the end to acclaim this victory. As they should. This was a well-deserved victory that came when Pat Ryan and his team needed it most. They were up for the fight from the first minute, even on the sideline when even the normally sedate Ryan and the even more sedate and studious Paul Kinnerk both received yellow cards early in the first-half for things getting a little heated.
From the early exchanges, Cork played like their lives depended on it. Within seven minutes, Seamus Harnedy had poached 1-1 off the Limerick defence and was rolling back the years, but his most significant contribution was how he created the goal for Shane Barrett, after a beautiful flick down from Brian Hayes.
All of that helped contribute to a 2-15 to 1-10 lead, which probably didn’t seem enough against this Limerick team, especially one that started the second-half like a train. Gearoid Hegarty and Cian Lynch were picking up more loose ball, Will O’Donoghue was pumping his fist more. But still, it took them until the 59th minute to eventually get in the lead, with Flanagan’s third goal of an extraordinary evening,
At that point, we all felt that we had seen this movie before. Because we had. Except this spirited Rebel side refused to wilt and were determined to write a different script. They blew the whole championship wide open by their resiience and determination to come back, not to accept what seemed like an inevitable fate.
Cork didn’t play like a team who had lost their last four championship games. They took the game to Limerick, even when they went behind down the stretch which is when these green giants trample over everyone. They had heroes
everywhere – from Patrick Collins with his laser-guided puck-outs to Darragh Fitzgibbon who nailed five points from midfield to Patrick Horgan and his nerveless penalty and Harnedy rolling back the years. There is a pulse to Cork yet and they proved that there might be a twist and turn in this hurling championship yet. There remains a sense of inevitability about Limerick, this defeat was only their eighth in 43 championship games under John Kiely and it all happened at the end, with a rash decision and a late penalty.
And Cork still have work to do to remain alive. Everything is riding on meeting their old rivals from Tipperary next week. So it is not quite glory days yet for Pat Ryan and his side, but this proves that they are alive and kicking and that they should have been on television. Not even Springsteen can live up to this.