'How can they be hungrier than us?' - Wayne Sherlock on 'cringey outside noise' and Cork focus

Irish Examiner

2 days ago

Nobody at Cork's Munster final press night was standing behind the door with their views. Each management member and player put up for interview arrived into the media room with a straight bat and swung repeatedly.
Pat Ryan admitted that he hadn't sufficiently driven the standards in training during the three-week lead-in to their first summer visit Shannonside. Shane Barrett didn't dodge his red card tackle in Ennis and Patrick Collins was perfectly candid on the championship spells last year where his restart malfunctioned.
And then there was selector Wayne Sherlock. The same as Ryan, he was asked about Paddy Power paying out on Cork winning the All-Ireland in the wake of their League final scorching of Tipp. The Blackrock local wound back his bat and let fly.
'I think we were being kind of set up, to be honest,' Sherlock began. 'Like, we only won a league, and we lost the All-Ireland final last year. I don't know how they could be picking us out to win the All-Ireland. That goes for any team. Limerick weren't at their best last year and they were being told that they were finished.
'It's kind of insulting. I think people want us to fail. How can you say Cork are going to win the All-Ireland just after winning a league final?
'We're around long enough not to fall for it. It's just being spoken about in such a way that you knew it was kind of insulting and they wanted us to fail. But was that the reason we played like that against Limerick, that we were thinking we were just going to beat them? It wasn't, 100 percent.
'We were hyped up before the Clare game and we put in an unbelievable performance in the first half. We were hyped up before the Tipp game and we put in a good performance. The noise was there and we still performed, just not for 70 minutes. But the outside noise is just cringey, to be honest.'
Let's stay with the just-not-for-70-minutes comment. It's a feature of Cork performances Pat Ryan touched on following the 15-point championship dismissal of 14-man Tipp. The manager noted that Cork can't function in second, third, or fourth gear. It's foot-to-the-floor in fifth or nothing. The Tipp league final, Tipp round-robin game, and Clare championship opener in between confirmed as much.
In the second half of Tipp's round-robin visit, for example, Cork lost the turnover count 14-11, despite their numerical advantage. On scoring chances created, 14-man Tipp came up just shy of their hosts, 22-19.
'We played well against Waterford in patches, but we're just not getting the whole 70 minutes together, which is the goal really. I don't know why it isn't happening. If we take our foot off the throttle, we're an average team. But when we're going full tilt and we're at it, I think we'll beat anyone.
'I suppose in the Limerick game, we were poor for the whole 70 minutes. Against Clare, we played very well for the first half. Against Tipperary, we played very well for the first half again.
'People were going on about how well we played against Tipp and Clare, but we weren't happy because we were only playing for 10 minutes, not playing for five minutes, and then playing for 10 minutes. I just can't put my finger on the Limerick game. We were delighted to win against Waterford. It put us in a Munster final so we're very happy with that.'
Back to Limerick they go. Not since 2006 has a county won the Munster final in their opponents' backyard. To bridge that 19-year gap Cork must first bridge a 16-point gap from the initial trip up through Mallow, Charleville, and Buttevant three weeks ago.
Cork last won Munster in 2018. Limerick have won every Munster since. They squeezed in four All-Irelands during that period. Hunger alone won't decide Saturday evening's latest collision. Far from it. But Sherlock just cannot fathom a situation where the hunger tabled by the decorated hosts is superior to their championship silverware-starved guests.
'If you were an outsider looking at a team going for seven-in-a-row, you'd be thinking it must be a cakewalk. But they've been winning most of the games by a point or two. Look, they're phenomenal.
'But going up to Limerick the next day, how can they be hungrier than us? That's my question. We have no All-Irelands, they have five. They're going for seven Munsters, a lot of our fellas have none. Realistically, how can they be hungrier than us? It's the question we have to ask ourselves and it can't be possible that they'll be hungrier than us.
'They're probably going to go down as one of the greatest teams ever to play the game. So if you're not at it for this, you probably shouldn't go up there. But one thing we can guarantee the Cork fans is that we'll definitely be better than the last day.'