WELL, that was a bitter pill to swallow for a Cork team that gave their all.
In previewing this Munster SFC semi-final that turned into an epic contest that needed extra-time to separate the neighbours, we mentioned how Cork had to win the midfield battle and convert their chances.
In terms of the end result for both elements, it was mixed. In extra-time, Cork had 14 attempts, but only converted four of those. Contrast that with a Kerry team that took every one of their four chances in the additional 20 minutes.
Even if you take their shots in the second half and extra-time combined, Kerry converted 71 percent, while Cork took 50 percent of their chances. Those are the tight margins, however Cork boss John Cleary pointed out that there were tired bodies out there.
‘In fairness, lads were tired. That was a gruelling game and I wouldn’t blame anyone for having a go. Fellas were out on their feet. We had ones that were narrowly wide or whatever,’ Cleary explained.
‘It was a fairly hard contest. You could see a lot of fellas came off with injuries and everyone left everything out there on both sides. Ultimately we fell short and we are going home disappointed.’
With Kerry having a relatively new midfield pairing in Joe O’Connor and Barry Dan O’Sullivan, this was seen as an opportunity for the Cork pairing of Ian Maguire and Colm O’Callaghan to dominate. But this wasn’t the case early on.
In the first half, Cork won 11 of their 19 kickouts with Kerry winning six out of their ten. Kerry scored 0-3 off Cork’s kickouts in the opening spell.
From the start of the second half to the end of extra-time, Cork were much better on restarts. Kerry only won half of their remaining 24 kickouts and Cork started to get joy off them, including for Chris Óg Jones’ goal. Cork won ten of their 16 remaining kickouts.
There were a few reasons for this. Kerry lost regular goalkeeper Shane Ryan to injury early on, disrupting their flow, but also the introduction of Cork subs Ruairí Deane, Conor Cahalane and Seán Walsh added a great aerial presence to the home side.
Regarding heart and desire though, this performance was the best the Cork footballers have shown in recent times. Kerry were seven up after Paul Geaney’s goal. Cork recovered. Seán O’Shea seemed to seal the win in normal time with his goal. Cork levelled it up for extra-time.
David Clifford hit 0-9, including eight from play with a 89 percent conversion rate, but his best form didn’t derail Cork. Even after Joe O’Connor’s wonderstrike that won the game in extra-time, Cork could have easily responded with a goal through Conor Cahalane.
The challenge now is for Cork to back up this performance in the group stage of the All-Ireland series. This showing against Kerry may not have yielded the result we wanted but it will give a lot of hope for Cork football fans moving forward. This group has shown they can compete with the league champions and the current All-Ireland finalists. Roll on the group stages of the All-Ireland series.
