Cork in a state of fragility as Liam Cahill's plan comes off

RTÉ News​

21-07-2025

In addition to his many other attributes as a manager, we have to give Liam Cahill top marks for misdirection.
A fortnight ago, when itemising his list of grievances concerning the media coverage of his difficult first two years in charge, Cahill highlighted one slight in particular.
"There were other things, such as Cahill plays with a sweeper. Liam Cahill never played with a sweeper on his team in his life. Ever."
That was that.
Not alone did the Tipperary manager deny that he had ever played a sweeper, he sounded personally offended by the implication he would do so.
All the while, the newly-crowned champions were planning to deploy a textbook sweeper in the first half to halt the supply of ball into the Cork full-forward line, a tactic which worked sensationally well.
This is a tricky moment for the traditionalists.
The word 'sweeper' is obviously taboo across large swathes of hurling nation, Tipperary very much included.
As a result, we're hearing some degree of semantics around this. On one podcast this morning, Bryan O'Mara was described as operating as an 'extra man back'.
We're not sure yet of what the precise distinction is between a sweeper and an extra man back but we're assuming it's a highly subtle one.
After this, the popular notion that a team has never won an All-Ireland playing with a sweeper can be put to bed.
Yesterday was a great victory for the gurus of tactics, even if there is some irony in the fact that it was supposed arch-traditionalists who delivered it.
In his victorious press conference, Cahill even pre-empted the line of questioning about the use of the sweeper with a slightly sheepish laugh.
"Ah look, I'm a traditionalist. I like to play 15 on 15 if I can at all," Cahill said. "But we had to cut our cloth to measure to make sure that we gave ourselves a chance of allowing us to express ourselves.
"You have to move with the times. When you get to a final, you have to try and win it."
As it is, the Tipperary manager has presided over one of the most stunning one-year turnarounds in modern times. From the sick man of the Munster hurling championship to the lords of all they survey in the space of 14 months.
Is there anything comparable? Clare came from way back in the pack to win in 2013 and then drifted away again as soon as they'd come. Going much further into the mists of time, Cork were knocked out by Waterford in 1989 - not really the done thing back then - and won the All-Ireland the following season.
It's a remarkable coup for Tipperary, all the sweeter for being so unexpected.
Cahill had said at various stages of his reign that it was a three-year plan to get Tipperary back to where they were in the 2010s. The outworkings of that plan have followed a very odd trajectory.
Who knew that the plan was to stink out the joint in the second year - to the point where local media were asking whether you were considering your position - and then to win the big one in the third year?
Whatever about the 'extra man back', Tipp held firm to their modern tradition of never winning an All-Ireland final by a tight margin if they can at all help it.
They were greatly helped by their opponents' shocking meltdown.
There's a graphic quiet emanating from Cork at the minute, especially in light of what's gone on in the last month. A sense of a people processing a great shock.
The music and the conspicuous hype have died down and all that's left is sorrow and pained introspection.
The fear from Kingfishr's point of view is that 'Killeagh' will go the same way as 'We're all part of Ally's Army' did in Scotland after the 1978 World Cup.
As usual there is a great deal of mirth and schadenfreude on whatsapp and on social media. The image of a certain North Tipperary poll topper and former county board chairman outlining Cork's second half scoring tally from his perch on the backbenches has gone everywhere at this stage.
The players have understandably communicated that they can't hack a homecoming event this evening and opted to deliver their thanks to the supporters via a county board statement.
One perceptive Cork fan said he saw the warning signs at half-time. They had played with a healthy breeze in the first half and were grossly flattered by the six-point margin at the break. In general play, it was clear that Tipp's tactics were working and it was only their poor shooting efficiency and the late Shane Barrett goal that produced the six-point lead.
From Cork's perspective, it was a tactical failure before it was a mental one.
It's what occurred in the second half that has people casting around in search of historic parallels.
Inevitably, the question has been floated as to whether Cork buckled under the weight of hype and expectation that had been placed on them this summer.
Modern analysts and members of the broader coaching fraternity tend not to favour this school of analysis. It's not granular or technical and smacks too much of bar-stool cod psychology.
However, the second half scoreline is so abnormal, it seems to warrant a deeper explanation than the usual technical and tactical insights.
The key period arrived early in the second half when Tipp rattled over five points on the trot to bring it back to a one-point game.
Cork never responded to this flurry, with anxiety quickly pervading the entire team. The sense in real time was that this deepened with every shot that came back off the post. The dread increased with every thwack of the woodwork, with the Tipp defenders seizing on every rebound. That sinking feeling familiar to any county with a losing run in All-Ireland finals.
The second half didn't ebb and flow. It all flowed the one way from there.
There were even shades of 1984 in reverse. John McGrath's opening goal which pushed Tipp in front for the first time resembling Seanie O'Leary's late goal in the '84 provincial final, when John Sheedy stopped Tony O'Sullivan's point only for the Cork full-forward to pounce on the rebound.
The second goal, which came with the double-whammy of the Eoin Downey red card, was a display of Darby-esque wiliness from McGrath. Once that happened it was dire straits for Cork. McGrath's brilliantly taken third goal, by which time we had entered the realms of the surreal, produced gasps and exclamations of shock all around us.
The now infamous 0-02 haul in the second half was at least partly a consequence of their need to find goals late in the game but the substantial damage had been done at that stage.
For Tipperary, they earn the historic bragging rights, in the first ever Cork-Tipp All-Ireland final.
In Cork, the darkness creeps in. In both the context surrounding the game and the manner of the capitulation, it has to go down as the most galling of All-Ireland final losses.