[quote=âWatch The Break, post: 829484, member: 260â]Cork have the edge physically or in general?
If I was a Cork fan Iâd be more worried about the sharpness of their hurling than anything else. Coming into the game, the general attitude was that Cork had played a much faster game against Dublin and had showed better fundamentals in that game than Clare had against Limerick. But really it was Clareâs hurling that was far better on the day whereas Cork looked to be struggling with the intensity of the Clare pressure.
On the other hand, they were still extremely efficient with their chances which doesnât suggest that the heads werenât right. I donât think theyâd have had the composure to hit only three wides and work goal chances when they needed them if it was a case of mental collapse.
Tactically the puckout is the centre-piece for the replay. Cork got 15 points against Dublin in the first half and only 16 in total against Clare in large part because of the difference in the effectiveness of the puckout. We would not have expected to dominate in the air as we did and we would have seen a huge risk in facing the Cork puckout without a sweeping defender behind the break.
That threat never really materialised because with the exception of Kearney, no Cork player was beating his opponent to the break on those occasions the ball did go through the line. Similarly the puckouts with a lower trajectory only rarely found the hands of Harnedy or Cronin at least in part because thatâs a very difficult puckout to consistently execute.
Cork will have two main ways of reacting to this the next day. They gamble on Ryan and Bugler not being as effective in the air again, and on Clare not being so much sharper on the breaks again. Or they focus on finding backs with the puckout, drawing the Clare midfield in and creating space in front of their half-forward line to make that low trajectory ball less of a risk.
Success in any respect would require them to hurl much better than they did in Sunday and thatâs the real question. If Cork donât show improvement on that fundamental technical level then tactically itâs going to be difficult to change anything. No tactics can make up for fumbling the ball under pressure or being beaten to breaks. If they do improve, then theyâve every reason to be confident as they just scored 3-16 while not hurling that well at all.
Personally I donât know how much improvement is there or even if Cork under-performing is the right way to read it. Limerick looked very similar to Cork against Clare but were probably denied the goals because of the presence of the sweeper. Similarly they saw themselves as not having turned up and their bigger names were regarded as having under-performed. I donât really believe thatâs entirely accurate, nor is it entirely plausible that Cork and Limerick both under-performed in such similar ways. But I guess time will tell. With such fine margins it doesnât take a whole lot of movement either way to dramatically change the outcome.[/quote]
I donât think nor did I say they mentally collapsed. They were not fully prepared for the intensity of the game. I think this may be directly related to training. Cork may have set up training to play against 7 backs. This possibly led to alot of space at training. With such gaps in GAA I donât think your last games intensity is as important as is made out. Training and getting to the right pitch in training is huge. I have felt all along there is very little between the teams and it would be a game of its own. I also made mention a few time of my worry about the tit for tat nature of the games between these teams as Clare had more to learn from the last meeting. Thatâs out the window now.
I canât understand anyone thinking Cork havenât massive improvement in them. This yeat Cork play 10 times better against this very Clare team. Clare are not as good as you think they are. They played really well Sunday, but alot of their main men had stormers. Thatâs rare, and they still didnât win. That alone tells a big story. This horse shit about the ref keeping Cork in it is beyond stupid. Iâve watched it 3 times and the ref was shit for both teams. Depending on your persuasion you could call it either way who he favoured. Of course he didnât favour Either team, mostly he just wasnât up to the game.