Did Aussie feature at all today? He’s much vaunted comeback hasn’t really got going at all.
The whole perception seemed to be based around Brian Hayes and his pace. They still have a heap (hape) of nice tippy tappy lads who are windy enough when it comes down to it. Alan Connolly, Patrick Horgan, Mark Coleman, Tim O’ Mahoney, Darragh Fitzgibbon etc. would fall in to this category. Sean O’ Donoghue and Niall O’ Leary have been the starting corner-backs for Cork for years now going back to when they were also-rans. They’re not as young as the narrative suggested. They have two regulars who are eligible for over 35’s soccer.
Same holes every time, whether it’s a twenty minute spell or longer. There’s something with them, it’s not a talent thing. Winning against your own man, beating your man, still an issue when it’s in the fire.
There’s also the key element in that…most people just don’t care about split season zombie zone intercounty hurling. The third weekend in May was always the traditional last long weekend break before the final run in to the end of the primary school year & you have the likes of @Fagan_ODowd in Bilbao & myself in Center Parcs. Waterford’s season will be over next weekend & it’ll be a mere passing thought for most people in the county.
Austin’s comeback has been a disaster from the off. He absolutely busted himself last November/December to try get fit and ended up getting injured and set himself back months.
I’d read nothing into that Cork performance. They didn’t try a leg.
Limerick would have got word shortly before throw-in today that Kilkenny were 16 points up on Dublin at half time & Wexford were therefore practically eliminated. It’s hardly a coincidence that this freed them up & they went out & opened their shoulders.
Cork over the last couple of years remind me a wee bit of the great Tyrone team when they were developing in the 2001-2003 period. They could be absolutely brilliant on any given day and also absolutely useless and/or capitulate on any given day. They had a propensity to be defensively humbled before they eventually came up with a system which suited them. They had a full back problem. They had a small core of lads who were denigrated as having never won anything. They aren’t a relentless machine but when they’re on it they’re close to unbeatable and they’ve demonstrated they can raise it when they really need to. Despite it being a short championship in another way it’s a long championship, you need to find answers to questions when you haven’t yet won a championship, and there’s a time and a place to ship a beating and today was as good as any a place to ship a beating.
In fairness you can hardly show less aggression than the likes of Tim O’Mahoney and Mark Coleman.
In any case they were completely outhurled by Lynch and English in particular. There’s plenty of top tier talent in the front 6 for Cork but a different matter entirely from 1-9.
Tipp are at least 2 years away from where they need to be to win an All Ireland
Waterford are chronic but could beat Cork.
The real tragedy is the only team in Ireland that can bring the magic like Limerick will be sitting on the sideline for the rest of the year. As for Leinster hurling. Rip