CORK V CLARE

[slow corner back]

Fair dos to cork great comeback, however 35 mins of hurling will not beat the cats.As for sully thats surely the end of him

[The Wedger]

Dickie Murphy again stayed loyal to his Cork roots! 
Two very bad goals given away by Clare though.
They had Cork on the rack.
Cork are a long way off the standard and serious imporvement is needed against Kilkenny.
Putting gardiner full back would be a waste, but O'Sullivan is being shown up every game.

[AZOffaly]

My bold prediction. If Diarmuid O'Sullivan plays more than 30 minutes full back against Kilkenny, Kilkenny will beat them by at least 6 points.

Clare had Cork in all sorts of trouble there yesterday, but a few things stood out for me as I watched the game from the Killinane end, as opposed to TV, so I might be wrong on further viewing.

1) Clare hit stupid, stupid, stupid wides in the first 20 minutes when they were well on top. It's no exaggeration to say the score could and should have been 1-16 to 6 points at least at half time.
2) Dickie Murphy rode Clare bareback. Possibly not intentionally, but just in his style. Several times Clare lads were fouled in possession, and Dickie didn't blow up. Cork got a few frees, which were frees in fairness, but Clare seemed to have to work very, very hard to get a free. I'm not sure if it was just the 'types' of contact that Clare were getting them selves into.
3) Clare went out of the game badly in the half forward line and midfield in the second half. Where they never gave Sean Og, Curran or Gardiner a minute's peace, or an easy ball, in the first half, it was noticeable how often Cork picked up loose ball or breaks in the second half. Also Tom Kenny and Ronan Curran made a couple of great breaks up the field as well, which wasn't happening in the first half. It's hard to keep the intensity Clare were at, which made their first half wides all the more costly.
4) Cork's willpower is immense. Fair play to them. They were getting cleaned, no other word for it, cleaned, for 35 minutes yesterday, and they lifted themselves again, to go to the well one more time. Whatever about their likeability or otherwise, you have to hold up your hand and say they are some men in a battle, and fair play to them.

Cork will give Kilkenny a right rattle, but the stuff they've got away with so far would cost them dearly against the Cats. Falling into any sort of deficit. Being open to conceding goals. Going out of the game for periods of time. All that spells suicide against Kilkenny.

[GaillimhIarthair]

Have to agree with a lot of the comments above on Dickie Murphy.  He absolutely rode Clare yesterday, especially in the latter part of the second half. Credit to Cork for the comeback, but they will need to lineout their defence as they finished yesterday otherwise KK will beat them out the gate.  O'Sullivan's career as an intercounty fullback is well and truely over after his last couple of displays.  Cork will fight tooth and nail to stop the cats doing the 3 in a row, but I think this team may have been to the well too often his season already and will more than likely come up a few point short.

[EddieMerx]

As a fellow Wexfordman I can tell you that Dickie does have his favourite teams and it shows when he refs games. Dickie is known admirer of Cork and Tipp and it tends to show when he is in charge of any of their games. Clare clearly should have had a pen yesterday and also Clare had to work harder for their frees compared to Cork.

I'm no fan of Dickie as I have been on the receiving end of his bias in club games before, he honestly has a God complex on the pitch.

[Reillers]

Have to agree with a lot of the comments above on Dickie Murphy.  He absolutely rode Clare yesterday, especially in the latter part of the second half. Credit to Cork for the comeback, but they will need to lineout their defence as they finished yesterday otherwise KK will beat them out the gate.  O'Sullivan's career as an intercounty fullback is well and truely over after his last couple of displays.  Cork will fight tooth and nail to stop the cats doing the 3 in a row, but I think this team may have been to the well too often his season already and will more than likely come up a few point short.

Isn't that what everyone said when we were going to play Galway, they're done, they've no hope great Canning will lead Galway in and trash Cork because that's what the media says, because Galway were one of the favourites to win the AI. But what happened we had a great game great comeback..but probably just one last kick in the dead body right, that's what everyone said before the Clare game, ah sure they only probably just had one last kick in them, Clare will be hungry, fresh etc, Cork are done and yet again against Clare the same thing happened, great comeback, played a fantastic game, but no..no were still not favourites against a KK side who get too much credit then they deserve, you're supposed to earn that but they haven't to be honest. They're in the semi final without even hitting a ball. We've proved ourselves so many times over and over again this season when every single person said that we couldn't and we did.

You know the Tipp game, there was one main reason we lost to Tipp, because we let them back in, we let them in, the fact that we were still trying to find our best combination up front and our fitness levels also had an impact but the main reason was because we tried to play a game style that wasn't our own. In the first half we riped Tipp to shreds, we played our running game like we did in the second half of Galway and Clare and it worked really well. If we had kept playing that type of game, instead of trying to play some other style that suited no one, lobbing balls up onto our small forwards..etc, wasn't going to work and it didn't so we handed Tipp the game on a silver plate and in fairness they took it well with both hands. But Tipp don't scare me, they certainly wont scare Waterford. What I saw against Clare in the final, though good it was, was nothing to fear.
The Dublin game was just a bad day. Dublin put it up to us, they, despite what the media would like you to believe, were always going to be hard to beat. They put it up to us and we played as well as we needed to, if worse came to worse the lads could have
upped it if they needed to.

So after all of that, we're still not favorites. I don't mind not being favs. To be honest I think it's better but I just can't believe that were being written off again. This Cork team knows full well that 35 mins alone against KK will be like signing a death warrant. It wont be good enough, if we give KK an 8 point lead we might as well leave then and there. But I can't believe yet again people think that this Cork team is finished again, after all we've seen. This Cork team, really, REALLY wants to stop KK going for the 3 in a row and the only thing that will stop them is fatique. KK have had it nice and easy all season, and are nice and fresh and like I said, they haven't even hit a ball properly and they're in the semi. I don't know if the lads can physically do it again, they might be too tired, this teams been on the road for a long time, and this season hs been no different, if not harder then others. But it will be tiredness not lack of skill that could be our undoing against KK. We don't fear them. We're not afraid of Kilkenny. Now us being battle hardened could either stand to us or be our undoing. The Cork players will want it more, KK always get credit that they don't deserve. Even on the Sunday game last night, praising them to the high heavens but for what, winning Leinster.
One things for sure though come the final whistle of that match the hurling system will be shown for it's fault in Leinster because either Cork wont have the legs or KK will lack the match time.
I believe that the Cork team can beat KK, for so many reasons, the 3 in a row, the fact that they'll be written off again, the claim as the greatest team in Ireland, the will to want to keep on going and win one more AI. And the fact that we have bloody good hurlers.
We've problems in out defence at FB and I hope that'll be fixed by the selectors come match day. I can't see them playing, Sully, who has been the best FB in the country for years, I think his time has come to an end. He hasn't been having it easy. But stopping Canning isn't exactly the easiest thing to do and the entire backline was being pulled apart in the Clare game, not just him. So we'll see what happens. It'll be difficult to make decisions on who to play, but that's a good thing. We've a fantastic bench and there will be some very tough calls in there but I'm not going to question the selectors seeing as they've pulled it out of thin air yet again.

[AZOffaly]

Cork will give Kilkenny a right rattle, but the stuff they've got away with so far would cost them dearly against the Cats. Falling into any sort of deficit. Being open to conceding goals. Going out of the game for periods of time. All that spells suicide against Kilkenny.

Who's witing them off? I don't think Cork will have any fear of Kilkenny, nor should they, but common sense would tell you, as you've said yourself, that what happened the last two days will not be good enough. That's not exactly writing them off. Do you write motivational speeches for the rebels, twisting everything that's said?

Also, as for saying Kilkenny haven't hit a ball this season, that's just typical munster rubbish that I had hoped Offaly and Wexford's displays especially, would have quietened a bit. Offaly beat Limerick, and gave Waterford their bellyful of it. Wexford gave Waterford an even tougher test. Kilkenny had to work hard against both until they managed to pull away. That doesn't mean Offaly and Wexford weren't better when they weren't playing Kilkenny, but it's disingenuous to say they got no run out at all.

Tipp and Kilkenny are both facing tough enough questions because the likes of Waterford and Cork have had good, hard, games recently and they've both been idle. But I don't think Tipperary were that much more stretched than Kilkenny in winning the Munster to be honest.

[Galforever]

Clare should have had a penalty, no question. But other than that, I dont think they have a lot to complain about. I always had the feeling that Cork were two or three points a better team once O'Sullivan went off. So I'm not sure if Clare would have win even if they got that penalty. Alas, We shall never know.

Do Cork not have any subs in the backs? They have to do some amount of switches just to change their full back. I would be a little uncertain of Gardiner at full back as well.

[GaillimhIarthair]

They dont seem to have too many options in the backs for sure Gal and whatever is on the bench it doesn't look like they have a lot of faith in them based on the switches from the last few days.  Gardiner to FB, Kenny to wing back and Naughton to midfield seems to be the standard changes when the rock departs.  Naughton seems to thrive in the open spaces of midfield and may not be a corner forward after all.  If they start the rock v KK, its curtins for them.  Will be interesting to see how theu line up for sure.

[orangeman]

Two great games in store -


Will they play one of the semis in Thurles ?



No point taking Cork and Kilkenny to Croker ! There'll not be 10k at it !

[imtommygunn]

Is your man Cadogan not meant to be useful?

However I don't see anyone, to my knowledge anyway, who'd be a "natural" full-back. Gardiner is a half-back/midfielder and while he can do a job to an extent in there he'd be better out the field.

[AZOffaly]

On the evidence of the last 2 games a half back line of Kenny, Curren and O'Hailpin, with Gardiner at full back, is better than Gardiner, Curran and O'Hailpin with O'Sullivan at full back.

[EddieMerx]

Agree AZ, Sully surely can't be trusted to start against the Cats

[orangeman]

I really liked Sully down the years but has Father time called to him ?? It seemed Gerald was very reluctant to take him off !


Had Cork been beat y'day Gerald would have rightly come in for a lot of criticism for not taking hom off earlier !

[imtommygunn]

What age is he?