FOR 37 minutes and a little change last Sunday, Cork’s indifferent league form continued against the bottom team in Division 2. Enter Matty Taylor and Tommy Walsh.
A Kevin Flahive interception deep in defence saw Taylor take the ball about 25 yards from Cork’s goal, Kildare had committed numbers forward, and were defensively exposed. Sitting roughly in line with the Cork 45-yard line, I watched Walsh take off sprinting. He cut a direct line to the Kildare goal all of 100 yards away, and didn’t slow down until the ball was in the net.
I imagine he was a happy man that the half-time whistle was imminent because it was a lung-bursting sprint. To describe it as a game-changer would be to understate the fact – Kildare had looked in total control and Cork were laborious and all but toothless. Suddenly, the blood drained from the men wearing white shirts on the field and the energy coursed those in the black and red. It was set up for Cork to come out in the second half and take control. To their credit, Cork took advantage with their best half of football of the league so far.
Before I move further with the analysis, and after remembering the great Paudie Palmer last week, I must take a moment to remember another man I thought of after watching Tommy Walsh sprint the length of the pristine Blackrock sod. In my early days training and playing with Cork, right corner forward was my spot. In the regular A versus B games we would have at training, a certain Kieran O’Connor from Aghada was my direct marker. Or my ‘shadow’ as I soon came to affectionately, and sometimes not so affectionately, know him.
Kieran was quick, quicker than I was, and had the ability to sustain that pace for 80/90/100 yards, like Tommy Walsh last weekend. It would break my heart trying to track him as he took off on yet another length-of-the-pitch sprint. It may be par for the course now, but corner backs weren’t supposed to do that 20 years ago. We had some great battles in training, but I wasn’t too sorry when I got moved to the left corner and Daniel Goulding would generally have to try and chase after him. He hated it even more than I did! The 2010 team have met once a year for a couple of pints in recent years, and Kieran is sorely missed from the gatherings.
Back now to last Sunday, and the talking points from Cork’s Jekyll and Hyde performance. Let’s start with the first half as the talented Daniel Flynn created one goal and scored another himself after a long direct kick from the long serving Niall Kelly. Daniel O’Mahony looked under pressure trying to contain Flynn, however he would improve vastly as Cork did in the second half. Let’s look at Flynn’s first-half performance, and a lesson Cork and particularly Conor Corbett could learn from it. As is normal these days, almost everyone for Kildare filtered behind the ball at times, apart from Flynn.
Having started so well, Flynn had the confidence to stick to his spot at 14, meaning at least one and, more often, two Cork defenders had to hold back with him. It’s something David Clifford will often do as well, staying high up the pitch even if his defender looks to head up the field. In effect, he’s daring the opposition to leave him unmarked in front of goal. More often than not, the defender will return to tag him. It means the likes of Flynn or Clifford or O’Callaghan or McGuigan don’t expend their energy constantly running back to defend in their own half, and even more importantly, it gives the team a target for a direct ball in the event of turning over your opponents.
Cork manager John Cleary addresses his players after the win against Kildare.
At one point in the second half, Kildare launched an attack from their own half. The build up was slow and Cork had numbers back. Conor Corbett was up front on his own, occupying a defender. However, he then decided to jog back towards his own half to join the defensive block, even though there was no real need. As it happened, Cork won the ball back in the left-half back area, and Corbett turned and tried to sprint back to the 14 spot. He actually had his back to Mark Cronin when the Nemo man was trying to counter attack quickly and the opportunity was lost. Getting everyone behind the ball every time isn’t necessary and keeping at least one but preferably two or three high up the pitch at times would be beneficial. Encouraging Corbett to do this more often could help to begin unlocking his enormous potential.
I’ve been fairly critical of Cork’s kick-out performance this year, so credit where it’s due: there was more variety to this aspect of Cork’s game against Kildare. At times it was just quick, off-the-cuff work with players darting into space and goalkeeper Chris Kelly having the confidence and ability to pick them out. Other times the outfield players would make a central line and then dart in various directions to look for space, again Kelly backed himself to pick them out. And yes, on occasions, Cork went back to the overload on the left wing. Kildare’s press was weak compared to others, and Colm O’Callaghan lorded the aerial battle. A clean catch from one such kick out led directly to Corbett’s brilliantly taken goal.
Individually, several players enhanced their reputations. Chris Kelly has now emerged as a proper competitor for Micheál Martin’s number one jersey. His kick-outs were generally very good, and he made two very clean catches from dangerous high balls. Tommy Walsh was playing well ever before his highlight-reel goal, while Colm O’Callaghan bossed the midfield both in the air and on the ground, in the second half especially. Brian O’Driscoll was Cork’s best performer over the course of the entire game, while Chris Óg Jones recovered from a wasteful opening half hour to match O’Driscoll in pilfering three points from play. Conor Corbett is a potential superstar, while Sean Powter and Ruairi Deane made the team stronger when they entered the fray. The experienced Ian Maguire and Brian Hurley had their moments too, hopefully the younger blood coming through can energise those two for the summer campaign as we will need them to stay fit and perform at the level we know they can.
All in all, some green shoots after a very difficult and gloomy February. Two more points are likely to be needed to at least ensure safety in Division 2, whatever the repercussions might be for Cork’s Sam Maguire status.
Before another huge game against Meath in Navan on Sunday week, Cork departed on Wednesday for a four-day warm weather Camp in the Algarve. I went on three such trips with Cork back in the noughties, and they divided opinion even then inside and outside the camp – next week might be a good time to revisit some of the good, the bad and the ugly from my experiences of those.
