Cork heavy favourites but seem to struggle with sweepers or packed defences for some reason and still seem to have a flakiness about them which makes it interesting. Galway seem to be playing with a bit of aggression and mental steel which could rattle cork too. Cork’s defenders not the market leaders for defending in a load of space and Galway have serious attacking forwards. Galway seem more tactically astute too. Expect Galway to rattle in a few goals but cork to overpower them eventually.
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Would be a small bit more confident if Rory Burke were available. His power to win ball and pace to break lines would be a big help. Plus it weakens the bench having to start Darragh Neary rather than have him in reserve to come on and use his speed against tired legs.
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As the ever astute Shane Dowling observed, people said for years you can’t win an All Ireland with a sweeper - until Tipp proved them wrong. Galway’s unorthodox shape will trouble Cork but the rebels have too much firepower and will win by 5-7 points
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Cork by 12
Ngheobhaidh tú an scian, a chunt.
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Tá brón orm, a sheanchara
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I would say one question mark over Cork this is year is tactically.
Galway were doing some mad shit tactically against Dublin, will be interesting to see can Cork prepare and adapt for it.
Bit of pressure on Cork to deliver, Galway in the long grass.
Whiff of an ambush off it.
Having said that, the day Galway looked unreal was against Dublin and Clare bate them out the gate, so it’s hard to know if Galway are up to much either.
Galway are also Galway so fuck knows what they’ll do.
Should be a good game hopefully.
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Galway also showed a bit in the league.
League shmeague
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Anyone telling you they know how good Galway are is guessing but they have the raw material to be very good now and in the future.
That’s an excellent Cork team, they set a high bar. Are a new Galway in their first big game going to surpass that? They’d want to be a real top side.
Cork should really win and I’d say they will. I’m discounting the second half of the Tipp game completely. There was tactical uncertainty, but it was more getting a man sent off and being beaten to every ball subsequently that beat them. Our Lord himself could’ve come down off the cross and he wasn’t turning that around whatever gasket they blew.
Joe Canning: Cork and Limerick look set for final, but Clare and Galway are great unknowns
Going into the All-Ireland semi-finals this weekend, the pressure is different and the expectations have been revised
Thu Jul 02 2026 - 14:00•5 MIN READ
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Dublin’s Conal Ó Riain scores a goal ahead of Cathal Mannion of Galway in the Leinster SHC final at Croke Park on June 6th. Photograph: Tom O’Hanlon/Inpho
At this stage of the season, when everybody has played so many matches and nobody has any secrets, it should be easy to work out what’s going to happen next. But the circumstances keep changing. The pressure is different now. Expectations have been revised, up and down.
Limerick and Cork, the two teams who expected to win the All-Ireland at the start of the year, have both reached Croke Park on schedule. All the talk of those teams playing five games against each other this season is still alive, months after it was first mentioned.
But going into this weekend nobody really knows how Clare and Galway or fixed. Are Galway too young for this; are Clare too old? Is this just the wrong time for both of them?
After Dublin and Offaly were hammered in the quarter-finals, the usual questions about the quality of the Leinster championship were raised. There was no doubt that Galway were the best team in Leinster and along the way they had big wins over Offaly and Dublin.
But they also lost to Dublin and the issue that day in Salthill was conceding three bad goals. Dublin scored four goals against them in the Leinster final as well, and even though two of them came very late, when the game was over, it is still worrying to concede seven goals to Dublin over two games.
Apart from the Offaly game, Cork have not been scoring goals in bunches like they had been over the last couple of seasons, but they will look for early goals against Galway on Saturday. Cork are the team with the big-game experience: nearly all of them have played in the last two All-Ireland finals and they’re going to want to make that count from the start.
A lot has been made of Galway leaving only one player inside the opposition 45 when they don’t have the ball, but that leads to congestion in the middle third of the field, not in Galway’s full-back line. Between the opposition 65 and the Galway 45 there will often be 10 or 11 Galway players, which drags in just as many from the other team. But there is still space close to the Galway goal and that is what Cork will be looking to exploit.
Galway’s strategy is to run the ball from the middle of the field, but there is also a risk in the way they’re set up. If a team presses them high up the field and forces turnovers, Galway are open. I’d be amazed if Cork didn’t try that.
Galway’s Jason Rabbitte scores a goal against Kilkenny in Pearse Stadium on April 18th. Photograph: Leah Scholes/Inpho
Down at the other end of the field, though, Galway will ask a tactical question of Cork. Damien Cahalane is the obvious marker for Jason Rabbitte by virtue of his physique, but if Rabbitte is the lone Galway player inside the Cork 45, will Cork want Cahalane to be isolated with him?
From Cahalane’s point of view, he won’t care. People have doubted him all his career and he just keeps going. Cahalane doesn’t care who he marks and you have to admire that. He’ll back himself against whoever.
But Cork will want extra protection around him. In the Munster final Rob Downey sat back at times and all year Mark Coleman has been brilliant at dropping into the pocket and sweeping up.
Galway’s system has not stopped them from getting shots off. In the Leinster final they managed 47, with an overall shooting efficiency of 70 per cent. Those numbers will make them competitive against anybody.
Cork’s shooting in the Munster final was crazy by comparison: only 23 shots but just one wide and less than a handful of other misses. In the conditions, it was a stop-start game that day and that doesn’t suit this Cork team. What they want is a game that’s going at 100 miles an hour. They have explosiveness in their forwards and they have the fitness levels to sustain a high-octane kind of game.
With Johnny Murphy as the ref, it’s hard to know if Cork will get the ball-in-play time that suits them. There are days when he’s inclined to lay down the law and blow for everything. There are going to be a lot of bodies in the middle third so there is going to be a lot of contact. How he referees that will determine a lot.
This is a young Galway team and playing in front of a full house in Croke Park, where their supporters will be heavily outnumbered, will be a completely new experience for most of them. The way they celebrated on the pitch after the Dublin game hadn’t been seen by Leinster winners for a long time. But it also showed that it was probably their main goal for the year: get back to a Leinster final and win it.
If they don’t concede early goals I think they’ll give Cork a serious rattle. The pressure is off Galway now. Whatever happens, they’ve had a really good season. There might only be a couple of points in it at the end, but Cork’s experience will stand to them.
I think Cork should push up as aggresively as they can with Downey sitting in front of Cahalane and Rabbitte. IMO if we go with a loosey enough style of half-following, half-staying that’s what Galway will want. I’d be willing to continue to trust our fullback line with space in front of them so long as the required immense level of pressure is applied out the field.
O’Connell to manmark C Mannion wherever he goes (as long as Mannion isn’t sweeping).
Coleman and E Downey to follow their men right back the pitch.
SOD to take Whelan all over the pitch.
I actually don’t think Galway have named a dummy. I fancy that 15 to start, although in one way I’m surprised Cian Daniels is not included.
IMO not starting Buckley is a mistake. 17 points from play in Munster is a scoring rate that just can’t be ignored and he wins a lot of frees. Very very tricky to mark him but perhaps management have learned from the mistakes of the Munster Final?
Buckley, Harnedy (looked sharp last day; touch was good) and Barry Walsh are three serious subs for us to use and I wouldn’t waste time bringing them on.
Hard to know how this will be refereed. I think J Murphy of the 2024 final would actually suit us on this occasion. As astute observers have pointed out, a free-flowing game with the ball in play a lot suits Cork, and this version of Cork especially. We’re a bit more liberal in the physical stakes this year and Barrett, Hayes, Fitz, Healy are so dangerous with their pace and movement when the opposition defence doesn’t have the time to set.
I think it will be a cracker if both teams turn up. Very very hard game to call.
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Cahalane has loads of ability as a player and a defender, his weakness is he’s liable to do anything at any given moment and get sent off.
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I expect Gavin Lee to be left on the bench again. Maybe Daniels will start in place of Burke? Was it he who had to go off early the last time when clearly hamstrung already? Keen to see how Tom Monaghan/Monahan goes…he often struck me as a bit of a downhill cyclist who would clip loads of points from play in a loose game against Offaly or Wexford but be posted missing when things get tough. His haul in the LF was really impressive & it’d be nice to see perform well again. Hurling in Leinster & on the eastern seaboard generally could really do with Galway producing a big display.
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Rory Burke is injured and wasn’t named at all so Cian Daniels won’t be starting ahead of him anyway. Or Crystal Daniels as Buff was calling him back in February.
I meant that Gavin Lee was listed to start the LF & didn’t (unless I’m mistaken) because Rory Burke started (unless I’m mistaken). Lee is listed to start again so I was mooting Daniels starting ahead of Lee, not Burke who’s properly injured now (unless I’m mistaken).
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