BY JOHNNY CAROLAN
HAVING failed to qualify from the Munster SHC by the narrowest of margins last year, Cork are keen to take whatever marginal gains they can find.
The Rebels open their provincial campaign against Waterford in Walsh Park on Sunday (4pm) and Pat Ryan and his management team will hope to benefit from experience in their second year in charge.
Last year, a home clash with the Déise was followed six days later with another against Tipperary; this time, their second outing is the following Sunday against Clare at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh. With every point vital, Ryan wants to make sure that the schedule is managed effectively.
‘It’s just being better organised in how we reassess the games, how we move on through it, and how we manage players,’ he says.
‘We definitely got it wrong between the Waterford and the Tipperary game. It was six days, we have an extra day this time between the Waterford and Clare games. I definitely think we got that wrong.
‘We probably needed to give lads a bit of a break afterwards. We got lads back in straightaway the next day for a bit of recovery and analysis work. We’ll probably give them a bit more of a break this time.’
Last year’s schedule was lopsided in that Cork had played their two home matches before then going away to Clare and Limerick, with one-point defeats in each bringing the campaign to a premature end.
This time there is more balance – after Clare, they host Limerick on May 11th and then conclude the round-robin section away to Tipperary on May 19th. Whatever the schedule, Ryan knows that home comforts must be maximised.
‘You could take advantages from anything really but from our point of view, your home games are key,’ he says.
‘That’s what kept us out of qualifying last year. We beat Waterford and we didn’t play as well as we wanted against Tipperary. We probably should’ve won the game coming down the stretch.
‘You have to win your home games. That’s the key. We all know it’s very tight. Winning your home games is key. Obviously, the Waterford game is going to be a very important game starting off.
‘If you can get two points on the board early, you’re fighting until the end. That was our thing last year. We got two points on the board early against Waterford and we’d three points after two games but just couldn’t get over Clare or Limerick then in those two games.’
Cork managed eight goals across their four matches last year – they didn’t net in the win over Waterford, four were needed in the draw against Tipp and the Clare and Limerick matches yielded three and one respectively.
Ryan is targeting goals as a key weapon in the bid to extend the season and, to that end, the return of Alan Connolly has been a boon. The Blackrock man, unavailable for all of 2023, scored back-to-back hat-tricks in the last two Allianz Hurling League games, against Offaly and Wexford, and Ryan is delighted to have him back.
‘We know Alan is a very good player but one thing that Alan does is he goes for goals,’ he says. ‘He’s very, very direct in the way he does it. Tipperary have a couple of those fellas. Jake Morris does that a lot. Aaron Gillane does that with Limerick as well. From our point of view, it is a vital component of the way we want to play, especially with Robbie [O’Flynn] being out.
‘If we want to be successful this year, we’ll need to be scoring three or four goals. If you want to be doing anything really in the championship, I think you need to be scoring three or four goals to be winning your games.’
In addition, Cork mined 1-12 from half-backs during the league, which was another area they had identified with the potential for growth.
‘It was something that was focused upon,’ Ryan says.
‘We probably didn’t get enough scores last year. We got three points from our half-back line last year in the championship whereas we probably conceded 15 or 16. Both of those aspects are areas that we really tried to get after, that we shut down the opposition half-backs a bit more and create a bit more scoring opportunities for ourselves.
‘In fairness, Mark [Coleman] is back with us this year, he’ll give us that component. Rob [Downey] got the three points we had last year, he’s going well. It’s just encouraging lads to go forward a bit more.
‘Ciarán [Joyce] has gone forward a good bit more for us this year as regards breaking through the lines. That’s something you have to be doing now in this modern game because you’re going to have to get 30 points to win matches.’
