WHEREVER I turned on Sunday I was surrounded by sport. Bliss for a sports fan. At home on the couch I flicked between Galway v Derry, Liverpool v Chelsea and Cork v Waterford in the hurling. The TV was muted to listen to the second-half coverage of Cork’s crucial Division 2 football league game away to Fermanagh after following the first half on my phone.
It would be remiss of me not to say how much we miss Paudie Palmer for his sporting coverage on the radio. Regardless of who else does the job from here on, us GAA people in this part of the world will always be thinking of Paudie whenever we tune in to C103.
Again, not being able to see the game means I can’t go into much detail about the performance, but a crucial result was secured: Cork won 1-14 to 0-16. I know from experience that any win when you go north of the border is hard earned, so kudos to the management and squad for doing so. The manner of the win reminded me of another hard-earned win gained by a struggling Cork team in Ulster, when Kevin O’Sullivan from Ilen Rovers got a late goal to secure a win away to Monaghan to preserve our Division 1 status in 2006.
It was another game I followed from home, most likely listening to Paudie, as I was recovering from a hamstring injury suffered on a training camp in Spain – a topical issue, we might return to the merits of those another time. It was a high-pressure game and the win galvanised the squad for a tilt at the championship, where we would win Munster and reach the All Ireland semi-final again. Disappointment again against Kerry, yet we were in the mix and building with good U21 players coming through and retaining our Division 1 status was an important catalyst for our continued progression. The hope now is that the current crop of players can use the victory last Sunday to push on and finish the league strongly and provide us supporters with more cause for optimism for the year ahead.
Next up are a Kildare side without a point to their name, and seemingly in disarray. Injuries, player withdrawals and some internal bickering all point to a very unhappy camp. My very last day in the red jersey with Cork was as an unused sub during a bad beating in Thurles against Kildare, and I do believe there is talent in the county and with a management team stacked with county legends, I would be more wary than many ahead of this game. We all know a dog can give its worst bite when they think the end is near. Regardless though, if Cork have any ambitions of a positive summer, we must be ruthless and put this Kildare team to the sword.
According to reports, Maurice Shanley’s late goal was one of up to five goal chances Cork created again last Sunday. Improvement in this area alone would allow all of us to have a more relaxed Sunday afternoon in Cork city. Another report claimed that Fermanagh plundered four of five long kick-outs from Cork when they pushed up, but I think we’ve made those points here already previously and I don’t want to start sounding like a broken record. Management and players will be aware of the issues and will be working to fix them. And while the kick-outs issue is a complex and difficult one with no easy answer, increasing the rate of goal chances converted mostly comes down to individual quality and composure in the moment. My hope here is that Cork can bury one or two in the first half next Sunday, and that the confidence to push on and secure another win will be derived from those. Here’s hoping.
I noted with some interest some excerpts from an interview Ian Maguire gave after the Fermanagh game, and two nuggets caught my attention. First, he indicated that John Cleary read them the riot act after a poor first half, his exact words being ‘Cleary ate us and rightly so’. I can tell you from first-hand experience that you don’t want to be on the sharp end of John’s tongue. Modern-day coaches and managers don’t tend to break out the hairdryer treatment as frequently as used to be the case, half-time speeches mostly being more analytical, with stats being provided to outline the good and the bad, before tactical adjustments are discussed. Yet in this case, in addition to making two personnel changes at half time, the old school rollicking had the desired effect.
Maguire was also questioned about the long journeys to the north and his response was firmly positive. He said: ‘Personally, I love them and a lot of the fellas love them. You have a day out, you are bonding with the team on a night over.’ Thinking back, I definitely didn’t always love them. We had some good trips and some not so good, however a full day of travelling on a Saturday before a Sunday afternoon throw in in Derry, Donegal or Omagh before making the same trek back late on Sunday was never my idea of fun, particularly if you didn’t get at least a decent amount of game time.
I wasn’t a great man for the bus, but Nicky Murphy’s travel sickness was on another level, and he drove to every single game. There was often a race between lads to get to his car after a game and get back quicker. The first man out would usually be an unused sub or someone a bit thick after being taken off, and Nicky would have to put up with his ears being burned most of the way home! However, when floodlights became more common and Saturday night games more regular, we would have a Saturday night in our Monaghan town base after the games. Home then at a reasonable time on the Sunday, that was the kind of weekend I could get on board with!
We had two great nights in 2010 (one was sanctioned, the other not so much) after away games in Tyrone and Derry and we tend to look back on those as great squad-building sessions that year. Ken O’Halloran often claims we won the All-Ireland in the Four Seasons hotel nightclub! Bere Island at Easter was the opposite end of the spectrum, however I firmly believe you need a bit of both to get the right balance in a squad. All jokes aside, lads like me leaving West Cork at 8am on a Saturday morning and not returning until around 2am in the early hours of Monday morning is a big ask for guys who have jobs to go to later the same day.
The other football I watched at the weekend was Dublin v Kerry in Croke Park. When I watched Kerry’s second-half performance against Monaghan recently, I installed them as strong frontrunners for the All-Ireland this year. Saturday night gave us all pause to reconsider. Dublin were a joy to watch at times, and seeing the superstar trio of Fenton, Kilkenny and O’Callaghan at their brilliant best will put hearts sideways in opponents all around the country.
Derry continue to impress also, and I would pay good money to watch Fenton and Conor Glass go toe to toe next Saturday evening in Celtic Park. I’m almost tempted to check if I can get a room in the Four Seasons on Saturday night. Nicky could even drive me up, and put the boot down to get back to Páirc Uí Chaoimh for 3.30pm on Sunday. Unfortunately, I have other plans for Saturday, so I’ll have to wait another while to see that battle in the flesh. It’s a big game, and hopefully it will deliver as it promises. It may tell a lot as to whether a third horse can enter the equation for the summer ahead.
