Only if youāre crying at the end.
Thereās a serious reluctance to say the quiet part loud with this Cork team.
Regarding yesterday, for as long as hurling has been around games like that have been won by short, stocky corner-forwards with a touch of magic. Limerick had Peter Casey. Who did Cork have?
Willem Defoe/Buckley
It was great to see Casey back to his best after the injuries he got. I never thought Iād see him as good again.
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If a poster was writing a parody sketch about a fictional, stereotypical Cork corner forward, the fictional creation would be less stereotypical than this fella is.
Has nobody mentioned the controversy regarding the timekeeping at the end of last years Munster Final, Kiely had a bit of a whinge about the ref that day, the famous ārub of the greenā comment.
Ben was disappointed, he said his piece, move on
In and out of the game yesterday but he was the winning of it, the point from under the ācovered standā (Iāll never get used to north and south) was sublime in fairness
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Heās just a magical player.
If him and DOD were fit in 2024 weād have done the 5 in a row.
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I recall you imagining a slight from that alright.
Right from the start, there has been something about Ben OāConnor as Cork manager that screams ācomeuppanceā, ie. this fella is going to get his comeuppance.
Something about his demeanour, his personality, his interviews. A schoolboy like smart Aleckyness, a trolliness that betrays a lack of real honesty. A Dublin football 2006-ness. A "weāre Cork"ness in a bad way, a sort of ābirthright will see us homeā idea. A dislikeability.
I always think you can tell a lot about a manager in any sport from their interviews. What you are seeing in their interviews is also what the players see.
Ben OāConnor in his interviews from the start smacked of āattention seekerā. Somebody who had read a book about Brian Clough at Leeds and decided thatās how he wanted to proceed.
OāConnor has a sort of half wit stare about him. I donāt know is that a deliberate act or is it just how he is, but either way, he has it. If heās feigning it, thatās a gimmick. If heās not, heās just a half wit. Which is better, which is worse? Does it matter? No.
The impression I got of Cork in the last quarter yesterday was they were a team who believed they would lose. In a match where YOUR NEED IS GREATER (and it really was greater for Cork, much greater than for Limerick) to lose in that limp fashion is uh oh territory.
If you look at John Kiely or Liam Sheedy or Micheal Donoghue, they are immediately impressive individuals and you can see why they are successful. You could see it to an extent with Michael Ryan and Derek McGrath. You can see it with Brian Lohan.
Pat Ryan did not strike me as an intellectual but you at least knew he wasnāt feigning anything. You knew the Cork players felt they had let that man down on July 20th last year and that they felt absolutely sick about that.
I could be completely wrong about this because it seemed to me Liam Cahill was entirely the wrong man for Tipp who had created a camp where misery reigned. And that turned out to be completely wrong. And I could be completely wrong about Cork because Cork didnāt have Darragh Fitzgibbon and heās their most important player who is their primary provider of fizz and it could be the case that Cork beat Offaly by 28 points and then beat Galway by 2 points in a titanic semi-final while Limerick beat Clare by 12 or Dublin by 22 and that will be the match that gives the Cork the belief to actually go and win the All-Ireland.
But anyway the above is the impression I get of OāConnor.
Beware of my opinion because I also had the opinion that Dublin would beat Galway by about 6 points and I also have the opinion that Dublin still have a very good chance of beating Clare and that will probably prove very wrong too.
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Listening to Joe canning talk about the ref itās highly unlikely the ref said anything to WOD.
While it was probably done to annoy cork Iām not sure itās the wisest course.
These things can bite you in the arse.
I wonder will the ref clear it up in his report.
Does a ref write a report on every game? Like if thereās a junior game in the back arse of nowhere where nothing happens do they submit a report to someone?
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Not sure about Derek McGrath as an immediately impressive individual.
He always seemed to me like he was getting away with somethingā¦but maybe thatās the Waterford demeanor.
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Heās certainly well read
Itās about building a connection with a group that makes them want to play for you. He did that and from looking at him and listening to him you could see how he did it.
And it isnāt just with Waterford heās done that.
Thereās just something about OāConnorās demeanour and persona that makes it hard to imagine players going to the well (designated GAA clichĆ©) for him in the way that you need.
Compassion is the key word your thinking of.
Iād say going up to tell Ben youāve to miss training because of an exam or something work/family related would go down like a lead balloon.
Heād give you that stare.
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Couldnāt be further from the truth.
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TBH I thought it was sticking to the process that cost them at the death yesterday. Trying intricate passing triangles between Collins, Coleman and TOM rather than just lamping it as close to goal as possible. The pre-ordained need for goals seemed to cloud their judgement a little bit too. Coleman going for goal midway through the second half rather than clipping over a handy point to keep them in the ascendancy.
Theyāre not as entertaining a team at all this season. Just donāt have the same flamboyance in attack. They seem to have lost something along the way, even though William Buckley is clearly an upgrade on Patrick Horgan in open play and Tommy Oā Connell has finally arrived at senior inter-county level. Iāve seen people here refer to these two being very obviously the top two in the country. But Cork havenāt beaten Galway in championship hurling since 2008 and that game is wrought with danger for them. Cork havenāt come close to matching the 0-31 Galway wracked up against Limerick in the league earlier this year. Plenty of bad blood from the sledging and hitting that went on between Galway and Cork in the league game in Salthill back in February so that would be a mouth watering game.
Although taking everything into consideration Cork were only the second team of the round robin era to win 4/4 in Munster (Tipp 2019 the others) and have only been beaten by Limerick this year so no need for too much doom and gloom either. Personally Iād have preferred a Limerick v Galway and Cork v Clare semi-final match-up but we should finally get the Limerick v Clare game in Croker that everyone wanted in 2022/23. Just a couple of years too late.
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Then again, itās horses for courses. I think if there was a Cork equivalent of Derek Lyng, that would be a perfect manager for Cork.
But Derek Lyng proved not to be the perfect manager for Kilkenny, because Kilkenny hurling had become institutionalised into āthe stareā being the law, and thus Lyng, who seemed to me to have obvious human qualities of being honorable, reasonable and decent, who seemed to me anyway to be a genuine honest broker, ended up failing in the sort of manner that Gorbachev ended up failing in, through liberalising just enough that people didnāt fear him.
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Very true. I actually think the players would go through a brick wall for Ben. Very popular with the players.
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