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Irish Times
4 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
Cork must rise above groans of fickle fans and take heed of Jimmy Barry-Murphy's words
The last time Cork lost two All-Ireland hurling finals in a row, in 1982 and 1983, Jimmy Barry-Murphy was the Cork captain in both years. Adding to his sense of personal torment, he failed to score in both games. 'I flopped on two big days,' he said in an interview for Voices from Croke Park, a book published by the GPA in 2010. 'I'm not ashamed to say it. I bombed out on the two days I wanted most to win.' By that stage of his career, Barry-Murphy was one of the most successful hurlers and footballers in the history of the GAA and one of the most adored sportspeople there had ever been in Cork. Stretching back to his first senior final with the footballers in 1973 as a suedehead teenager, Barry-Murphy was a player who delivered on the biggest day. In that All-Ireland final, he scored 2-1. With the hurlers in 1976, he blew the game apart with four points in the final quarter. Two years later he scored the goal that upended Kilkenny. READ MORE I'd be the first to admit that I would have scoffed at all this stuff years ago — Jimmy Barry-Murphy The point was that JBM knew what it took to perform in the biggest games and yet in 1982 and 1983, he couldn't access that knowledge, or he couldn't execute the stuff he knew. Why not? He didn't work that out in time for 1983. By his own account, he didn't confront the question. 'I'm convinced now that I wanted it so badly – captaining Cork to an All-Ireland – that I waited for other people to do it for me,' he said in 2010. 'Going into '83, I didn't analyse it deeply why I had played so badly in '82. The disappointment of losing in '82 and '83 was shattering. 'I suppose if I was playing now, there'd be a sports psychologist involved with the team to help out. I'd be the first to admit that I would have scoffed at all this stuff years ago. I wouldn't now. I needed to unscramble certain things in my head going into that game [in 1983] and I didn't do it.' When something extraordinary happens, there is a natural instinct to look for context, something that might add to our understanding and subtract from our bewilderment. Kilkenny captain Liam Fennelly (left), Cork captain Jimmy Barry-Murphy and referee Neil Duggan before the 1983 All-Ireland SHC final at Croke Park. Photograph: Billy Stickland/Inpho When people wondered if any team had ever scored only two points in the second half of an All-Ireland hurling final, as Cork did eight days ago, the answer emerged quickly: Kilkenny in 2004, against Cork. Had you forgotten too? That was a low-scoring game, but nine points was Kilkenny's lowest score in an All-Ireland final since 1936 and for them it must have felt like the sky had fallen in. There must have been Cork players last weekend whose experience carried echoes of JBM in 1982 and 1983: so desperate for something to happen that they wrapped themselves up in a knot. And just like JBM, maybe there was underlying stuff from the final the year before that had been unresolved. [ Joe Canning: Half-time decisions or lack of them looks like a mistake on Cork's part now Opens in new window ] The black box will be recovered, but the investigation will take months. In these situations, first responses are always fascinating. The urge to 'catastrophise' is common in sport and, like water, it follows the path of least resistance. As soon as the final whistle blew in Croke Park, blame exploded like a bomb. It was everywhere. In real life, when something terrible befalls someone in our affections, the first response is compassion and a desire to help. In sport, that is rarely the case, regardless of the feelings you professed while the team was winning. Every team has a hard core of unwavering loyalists, but, in general, support is conditional on performance. It is not the kind of unconditional love that you will receive from the family dog. It is far more shallow than that. So, the Tipperary supporters who had run away from their team in tens of thousands last year embraced their players in triumph. As they did, the tens of thousands of Cork supporters who had delighted in their team through a winning season were suddenly disaffected and angry and wallowing in self-pity and a sense of betrayal. How dare they fail. Part of the problem in Cork was that there had been two weeks of blinkered giddiness in the build-up. It was like that scene in Goodfellas where Joe Pesci's character thinks he's going to become a 'made man' and ends up with a bullet in the back of the head. He hit the deck wearing his best suit. Cork were whacked in a mafia hit. The GAA has no rules about that. There were mixed feelings when Cork cancelled their homecoming reception on Monday. The loyalists felt cheated of their opportunity to express their continuing affection for these players and offer some succour. Most people, though, believed it was the sensible thing to do. The players were mortified enough without having to face a rump of their public. Cork fans celebrate after last year's comprehensive victory against Tipperary in the Munster Senior Hurling Championship. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo/Inpho After the Cork footballers lost badly to Kerry in the 2007 All-Ireland final, Billy Morgan felt the players' efforts throughout the year should be dignified by a homecoming. In the event, a few hundred people turned up. Deserting the footballers never cost Cork people a second thought. It is easy to forget how much that group of Cork footballers suffered before they finally won an All-Ireland in 2010. Losing to Kerry in Munster had been an inherited experience for generations of Cork players, but that group lost four times to Kerry in Croke Park – two All-Ireland semi-finals and two finals – all of which magnified the pain. Stubbornly, heroically, they kept going. It is astonishing sometimes how the wheel turns. In 1965, Cork lost to Tipperary by 18 points in the Munster hurling final. It was the greatest annihilation that either team had visited upon the other in their long history up to that point. Tipp were the reigning All-Ireland champions, but according to newspaper reports, their supporters were outnumbered 'four to one' by Cork followers that day in Limerick. Cork mustered just five lonely points, and yet, by some voodoo, Cork were All-Ireland champions just 14 months later. Does that sound familiar? In May of last year Tipp lost to Cork by 18 points, equalling the greatest beating that either team had visited upon the other. Fourteen months later they were All-Ireland champions too. The people that mattered in Tipp rose above the din of condemnation and their voices ultimately prevailed. In Cork, that must happen too.
Irish Times
5 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
Well over twice as many two-pointers scored into Canal End than Hill 16
It can be very tempting to draw parallels between last Sunday's hurling final and this weekend's football showpiece . Despite being just a week apart and falling under the GAA umbrella, these are two very different sports, and the tactical dynamics that influence the games will be totally different. However, one thing will remain the same – the venue. Croke Park is sacred ground for the GAA and a great final played out on its manicured surface on Sunday. There's just one problem with the stadium, and it's starting to look more like a design flaw rather than a game-by-game coincidence. On Sunday, both teams struggled to shoot into the Hill 16 end of the ground with 0-15 tallied up there, while at the opposite Davin Stand (or Canal End), a blazing 4-30 was scored. It could well be the case that the football final will also be influenced by this strange detail, although it's likely to be a more subtle touch. The standing-only Hill end is the lowest part of the stadium, as well as the only section which is not covered by a roof owing to the train line running behind. This, as well as the large gap between this section and the Cusack Stand, creates a larger breeze for player shooting at the goals. This has proved particularly problematic for two-point shooting, with only 17 two-pointers being scored into the Hill in this year's Championship and Tailteann Cup games at Croke Park (13 in total). Down the other end of the field, there's been no such trouble, with 43 two-pointers going over the Canal End goalposts – more than 2½ times as many. READ MORE It's part of a wider pattern, where scoring is increased into those goals. In these 13 games, the scoring average (counting green, orange and white flags) was 10 in the half they kicked towards the Hill. Playing into the Canal End, teams averaged just over 12 points per half. It also appears easier to get a scoring streak going there too – the most scored in a half into the Hill was a total of 16, which has been bettered or matched five times at the other end. Counting each type of score fully again, there have been 314 points scored into the Canal End in Croke Park, compared to 260 at Hill 16. The good news for Donegal is that they are the only team to have scored more two-pointers into the terrace (3) in Croke Park than into the seats (1). The peak of Kerry's season so far occurred playing into the Davin, when they went on an unanswered streak of 14 points against reigning champions Armagh in the quarter-finals. That second half included three of their six Croke Park two-pointers, while they have shot two scores from outside the arc into Hill 16. Championship/Tailteann 2025 Total scores into Hill 16: 260 (11-17-193) Total scores into Canal End: 314 (14-43-186) Two-pointers into Hill 16: 17 Two-pointers into Canal End: 43
Irish Times
6 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
Poem of the Week: What I Did on the Sideline
Felt my stomach twist like the grip of my hurl when the coach said to hammer the other team, to shove and kick. Shivered in my damp, bulky skort, rough socks. Picked at my knees like chicken skewers. Consoled the girls who'd been dropped, others petrified they'd bleed on a pitch with a hedgerow for a toilet. Watched my team puck, pass, score. Grass scattered like secret notes between their studs. Listened to some dad call the goalie a 'useless cunt' as he smacked the metal lid of the dugout. Waited to be at least 7 points up, ran my tongue along the bar of my retainer as the sliotar soared over the goal. Would've died for a run. Patted the cup like a newborn when we won. Pictured the Powerade blue of the tumour bulging in my granny's neck to make myself cry when we lost. Her small body morphine-patched, terrified. Roared 'c'mon, c'mon, c'mon,' helpful as a plaster trailing an open gash. Today's poem is from Molly Twomey's recently published collection, Chic to be Sad (Gallery Presss)
Irish Times
23-07-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
Seán Moran: Hurling championship kept its biggest surprise until the end
The great irony of the All-Ireland season is the contrasting finales in football and hurling. Football was as open as it has ever been in the past couple of decades and yet, despite shocks along the way, two of the favourites have ended up in the final, including perennial front-runners Kerry. As a friend messaged after the quarter-final blitz of Armagh: 'The most open football championship known to mankind is probably going to be won by Kerry.' At the weekend, we had the climax of the hurling championship, by consensus slightly overshadowed by its football equivalent and so full of intrigue back in April that the bookies paid out on Cork before a match was played. Except that on Sunday, a Tipperary team, which had started the championship as distant outsiders, romped to a 29th title. In the past three decades, only three counties had taken Liam MacCarthy without having been in an All-Ireland semi-final for the previous five years: Clare in 2013, Cork in 1999 and Wexford in 1996. READ MORE That might slightly overstate Tipp's underdog status, as a side that still was crewed by a clutch of All-Ireland medallists even if just four started on Sunday against Cork. This was an influence referred to by Nicky English in his All-Ireland hurling final preview in The Irish Times. He recalled from his playing days the views of his own former mentors Theo English and Donie Nealon that it was easier to win All-Irelands with at least some players who already had Celtic crosses. So convinced was Wexford manager Liam Griffin of this truth that in the first minute of injury time in the 1996 final, he sent on 19-year-old Paul Codd so that county teams would have someone who had won an All-Ireland medal on the field of play at their disposal for well over a decade. [ I believed anything could happen in a Cork-Tipp match but wasn't quite prepared for this Opens in new window ] The scale of Tipperary manager Liam Cahill's achievement is still phenomenal and spanned the generations on his panel. The focus has been on the very youngest players, the Darragh McCarthys and Sam O'Farrells but, as a team-building exercise, it required the fusion of those rookies plus the reactivation of the 2019 survivors – epitomised by John McGrath's plundering of seven goals this championship – as well as incorporating the bridging generation, led by Jake Morris. Before the under-20 championship came into being it wasn't uncommon for a tranche of under-21s to feature in senior panels but the dropping of the year has made that progression less viable. Cork's Ciaran Joyce and Jake Morris of Tipperary. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho Cahill nonetheless cleared the decks for generational change after the humiliation of Thurles last year and Cork's 18-point destruction of the home team, who that day had also been mostly abandoned by their supporters. He drew scepticism for using his first-choice team so relentlessly in the league but they needed experience. They got that and more. Although the competition is best remembered for the seismic defeat by Cork in the final, there were, in regulation fixtures, ultimately telling wins over Galway, Cork, Kilkenny and Clare – all of which would be repeated at critical junctures of the championship. Maybe the opposition wasn't always at full stretch but they acquired a habit of winning, which survived championship setback. Cahill's approach crystallised after the win against Kilkenny in March. Speaking afterwards, he raised two issues that would be relevant until last weekend. 'Today was a good test again for one or two newbies. Young Oisín' – O'Donoghue, a goal scorer that day who would repeat that feat against the same opposition in the All-Ireland semi-final – 'making his debut in the Tipperary jersey. He did really well for 30 minutes there. 'Younger fellas again that performed well at the start of the league. The likes of young Sam O'Farrell' – immensely promising captain of the All-Ireland-winning under-20s and a starter on Sunday – 'and obviously young Darragh McCarthy. All those boys are going to be an integral part of Tipperary going into the future, not just in 2025.' McCarthy at 19 was in a category of his own in the All-Ireland, scoring 1-13 and showing immense fortitude in the wake of his disciplinary issues earlier in the championship. The manager also addressed the hum of background noise that has followed him since he took Waterford to a league title in 2022 followed by a championship blowout and was also picking up volume this year. Tipperary's Darragh McCarthy scores a penalty in the All-Ireland SHC final at Croke Park. Photograph: Bryan Keane/Inpho 'People say Tipperary under Liam Cahill will win matches in the spring, but can they do it in the summer? We have to prepare in the spring to make sure that we give ourselves a fighting chance in the summer. Summer is only six weeks away now.' An All-Ireland like this has become feasible in the modern era of multiple fixtures and the ability to absorb defeat along the way. In one way, Tipperary's victory is easily explained. Since the 15-point defeat by Cork in May, Cahill's team was on a constantly rising trajectory. None of the wins was of itself groundbreaking but created momentum, which accelerated as the victories became more consequential. Cork were more uneven in their delivery even though they had won all of the big prizes before last weekend. The ghosts that had haunted them along the way – and were believed to have been exorcised by league and provincial success – returned with a vengeance. To have ended up with as bad a final beating as they had suffered at the hands of peak Limerick four years ago has thrown the considerable progress – first league in 27 years and first Munster in seven – of the year into turmoil. This also poses problems for the GAA. The county's buoyancy has animated the last two championships, bringing crowds and colour. For all of that to plummet into disillusion would be a terrible blow for the game in general. Tipperary have given them a template for turning adversity into triumph but have Cork the materials and, above all, the perseverance to return to the bottom of the hill and start pushing all over again?
Irish Times
23-07-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
Darragh Ó Sé: Donegal have a wide spread of scorers but Kerry have David Clifford - that will swing it
I know they're probably not big hurling men – no more than myself – but Jack O'Connor and Jim McGuinness would have got plenty out of sitting their players down to watch Tipp v Cork on Sunday. It's a while since you got such a clear and obvious lesson in advance of the football final. Who do you want to be on Monday morning, lads? The team heading back the road as heroes or the one that can't bring themselves to do a homecoming? All-Ireland finals can spook players. It's very easy for them to forget what's important. The fact that you're in one at all means that things have been going well. Now your job is to make sure you do everything that caused you to get here in the first place. I remember going into the 2006 final with fellas telling me I was playing great football and that I was on top of my game and all that. You can get carried away with all that stuff and maybe think that a final is the place to really embellish the whole thing. But that's the wrong way to go about it. Going into that final, I told myself to be conservative. Box clever. Don't go swinging loosely and get caught by a sucker punch. All-Ireland finals aren't about shooting the lights out, unless you're the type of player that regularly shoots the lights out. That was never me. So I said I'd go into that final and be miserable. Be tight to the man I was marking, get in and do the dirty work. Tackles, turnovers, the basics. READ MORE The hurling final showed what can go wrong if you get away from all that grind. This thing can blow up in your face very quickly. Cork were six points up at half-time but the game was over when young Darragh McCarthy scored his penalty. That was only a quarter of an hour later. If I was playing in the football final this Sunday, that would be running around in my head all week. Do your job, otherwise disaster might only be 15 minutes away. From a tactical point of view, I don't think there's much either manager can come up with that would be on a par with Liam Cahill playing an extra defender. Both of these teams have had their own way of playing since the start of the year and I can't see either of them pulling a rabbit from a hat now. Part of that is because Kerry football is Kerry football and Donegal football is Donegal football. Kerry's Seán O'Shea in action against Tyrone at Croke Park on July 12th. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho But part of it too is that football is still very young under the new rules. If you take what we have now as being the game that came after the rule changes halfway through the league, you're only really talking about a few months all together. I don't doubt that in time, some enterprising coaches will sit down and start looking for a way to destroy it. But the fortnight since the semi-final isn't long enough for that. That's why I think this will be an enjoyable final. It's all still very fresh and very new and you have two teams that can play thrilling football, in their own way. I know we can still have bad games under the new rules but I don't think this will be one. [ Darragh Ó Sé: Kerry and Donegal are operating at a level above because everyone knows their role Opens in new window ] For Kerry, a lot still revolves around David Clifford. Donegal will man-mark him obviously – I presume it will be Brendan McCole – but I don't think they'll drop a man in front of him. You saw how Armagh paid for that in the semi-final, with Seán O'Shea running riot in the first half because there was space out around the arc. That distance between them is something that has really struck me about the way Kerry have set up throughout the championship. You very rarely see Clifford and O'Shea close to each other. They have tended to give each other as much space as possible. Paudie Clifford is liable to pop up anywhere but the two big scorers keep their distance from each other. Donegal's Brendan McCole. Photograph: Leah Scholes/Inpho Kerry need them both to be on form because Donegal's spread of scorers is so much wider. Clifford has played in four finals so far and he's had good days and bad days. Funny enough, the game against Dublin in 2023 is the one everybody holds up as his big failure but I don't see it that way. He was so close to having a brilliant game that day – a foot either way on three shots and it would have been one of the greatest All-Ireland final performances. That's how tight the margins are. Especially in a final like this one where there's no big favourite and everybody agrees that these are the two best teams in the country. There's no cause to cling to here, or no agenda for either team to lean on. Nobody will be able to say afterwards that they were written off going into the final. There's no hiding place now. Both teams know they left a good chance at an All-Ireland behind them last year. Both of them know the work that goes into getting back to this point. Losing is not an option for either of them. The players involved have to go beyond themselves, find that extra 10, 15 per cent that will make the difference. My sense is that Kerry might just swing it. No player on the Donegal team is scoring as fluently as Clifford and I just think that with a dry ball and a summer's day, he's going to make the difference. Kerry, narrowly.
