Cork conjure another master class

GAELIC GAMES:EXCELLENCE MARCHES to its own beat. Cork strolled out of Croke Park last night with yet another All-Ireland – their seventh in eight years – after tucking Kerry away with barely a murmur of fuss. It was relentless and it was merciless, the calling card of team that finds the distance between itself and the rest these days measured in furlongs rather than lengths. The final score was 0-16 to 0-7 but it could have been anything they pleased.

They’re a phenomenon. You’d call their hold over the women’s game dominance if that stop hadn’t been passed a long time ago. This is more like emasculation. Eleven of their starting team yesterday have been present for all seven All-Ireland victories and a 12th, Angela Walsh, came off the bench. It will end one day as all things must but for here and for now, they are untouchable.

“It was difficult enough coming in as raging hot favourites,” said manager Eamonn Ryan afterwards. “Everyone was saying we would win by this or that. The bookies’ odds were astronomical and that put fierce pressure on us. I was never so nervous before a match in my life. I even lost all my notes. I had to bluff away before the match. The players didn’t know what I was saying.

“We never put the emphasis on medals. The emphasis is on playing and training and enjoying it. The players try to improve a little bit all the time. To put your finger on it, they love playing football and they like winning. If it was the other way around they could be in trouble but their love of football transcends the desire to win the whole time. They would be out there on nights that you wouldn’t put a dog out in but you never get a dopey excuse about missing training.”

Kerry’s young team did their best to contain them here, getting players behind the ball from the off. It worked reasonably well for a while, with only a point between the sides after 15 minutes. But the further the game went on, the clearer it became that they were the wax and Cork were the wick.

The defending champions were 0-10 to 0-3 up at the break and the gap was never smaller than six points after that. Led from the back by Bríd Stack and a pair of outstanding wing backs in Briege Corkery and Geraldine O’Flynn, they pushed and picked at Kerry’s massed defence and drew a huge amount of frees along the way.

Cork full-forward Valerie Mulcahy could afford to have a day where she skewed more shots than she scored and still end up with seven points, all but one from frees. She was backed up on the scoreboard by 17-year-old Doireann O’Sullivan, who marked her first All-Ireland final appearance with four terrific points from play.

In eight seasons of football, Cork have only lost a single encounter yet it is that one game – a 2010 All-Ireland quarter-final defeat against Tyrone in Banagher – that is referenced in their dressingroom above all others. Ryan calls it the pebble in their shoe.

“I don’t think anyone realises how gutted we were that day,” said full-back Stack. “It was unbelievable. We trained hard but like all teams when you’re off for seven weeks without a championship game you can get complacent. When you’re used to winning, you’re used to winning and it’s very hard then to take a defeat. We love winning but I think we hate losing more

“Friendship is the key thing. We’ve been like a family for the last nine years. You have girls there that you socialise with, you eat with, you do everything with. And that’s what it came down to. You always want to fight and work for the person beside you because you’ve seen how hard they work in training. You’ll try your best to the very end for them.

“Eamonn Ryan said two things to us. The first thing was, ‘Remember Banagher, remember that feeling. Don’t let this one slip through our fingers.’ And then the other thing he said was, ‘Appreciate what you have when you have it. Don’t let time make you appreciate what you had.’ That has just stuck in our minds, just to appreciate what we have in the now. We’re a great bunch of players, a great bunch of friends and we’ll just keep going as long as we can.”

Sadly for everyone else, that could be a while yet.

Of the dozen who’ve been around for all seven titles, only three are in their 30s. Cork had never won an All Ireland before they came along and now they sit second on the roll of honour, four behind Kerry.

There’s no telling where their ceiling lies.