Cork 0-23 Galway 2-15WE PICKED ourselves up off the floor and rubbed our eyes. The evening sky was taking on its customary inkiness as the sun began its daily show of setting gorgeously. Semple Stadium was the same perfect lyric to hurling that it has always been. Down on the field though Cork were as vivid and unique as a brand new colour.
Most of our assumptions about what we knew had been blown away. One of two things had been confirmed. This was a Saturday evening hurling qualifier destined for the back shelf of the statistics cupboard but it transcended that and become epic. Galway gave the first proper senior championship showing of a legend. Cork survived that and reversed their decline.
It was a storyline of such unlikely and jagged twists that it even took the principles by surprise. Joe Canning scored 2-12 in one of the greatest exhibitions Semple Stadium has seen. He lost against a team who faced the wind in the second half with 14 men. Cork were missing Donal Óg Cusack. If a team has a soul, Donal Óg is this team's soul. Somehow Cork dug it out for their lost hero.
Joe Deane, whose magic hauled Cork back from the edge, was shouldered from the field afterwards and spoke in the tunnel as rapt faces hung down from above like overripe berries chanting Deano! Deano! Deano!
"The way the game panned out playing with the breeze in the first half, I don't know, we just had our backs to the wall in the second half. I'm just delighted to be involved in a day like this. Donal Óg has been an unbelievable hero to us. The atmosphere in the dressingroom at half-time was the most special I have ever known."
Further down the tunnel Ronan Curran spoke shirtless and sweating. "We were always up against it today, it was our biggest challenge, Donal Óg was sent off and he has always been our leader. We just drove it on for him."
"It was a display of pure heart and not just that, it took hurling ability too," said Gerald McCarthy, who has known decades of hurling days but none quite like this.
The hurling is almost a footnote to the drama. Galway had Canning and just about enough elsewhere to make this look exactly how we had all predicted it would look. Cork started well with four unanswered points but then Canning made a wondrous catch in the airspace above Diarmuid O'Sullivan.
Canning returned to earth and claustrophobia. The ball in his left hand was carried along between the rock and a hard place but somehow Canning freed it and slapped a one-handed shot past Cusack. The goalie ran to protest the number of steps Canning had taken and swatted Niall Healy along the way. The salt of a yellow card was lashed into the wound of the goal.
Cork kept pressing and stretched their lead before Canning really settled. Three frees from the kid kept Galway in touch then he sparked a wonderful move with a handpass inside to Alan Kerins who traded passes with Damien Hayes before being pulled down by Cusack. Another yellow for Cusack and the long walk. Martin Coleman came in just in time to see Canning's cocksure penalty go whiskering past.
By half-time Cork were a man down, facing into the breeze and looking at a deficit of 2-5 to 0-9. Joe Canning had scored 2-5. Donal Óg was gone. And the Rock, blood streaming from a reopened eye wound, was gone too.
Cork figured out a way to get the most out of their wounded rebel hearts though. Cathal Naughton and Ben O'Connor ran at Galway. Joe Deane was wondrous and magical, his touch perfect, his vision breathtaking. He soon required the undivided attention of Ollie Canning and most of the attention of Conor Dervan who succeeded Canning as sweeper.
Joe Canning got three of the first four points of the second half, Ben O'Connor the other but when they had settled Cork just piled on point after point into the breeze. Naughton and Deane's matching yellow helmets created the impression of a swarm as the pair foraged the left wing in particular
In the 46th minute Deane fittingly drew Cork level and from there remarkably the result seemed inevitable. We sat back and watched Cork become a force of nature, the only thing which would have defeated the superhero who was Joe Canning.
The points rained down. James Skehill made a wondrous save from Patrick Horgan. Galway, or Joe Canning to give the team its proper name, never got back on terms. Cork rejuvenated themselves, turning in perhaps their greatest performance as a team. It was a night of wonder.
As for young Canning he departed his first championship season with grown men wondering aloud if they would ever see his like again. He has already been kitted out by the gods with everything he will need for greatness; all that is needed now is for the world to get into kilter with his genius.
Galway have a duty to assemble a team who will be more than mere hewers of wood and drawers of water to his industry. If they need to join Leinster so let it be done. Canning's championship campaigns must be long and epic. We must see him hurl in August and September most years.
Cork march on and face Clare next weekend. How much sustenance did they take from yesterday? Next weekend will tell us but the answer will hardly be as breathtaking as Saturday's.
CORK:D Óg Cusack; S O'Neill, D O'Sullivan, B Murphy; J Gardiner (0-2, one free), R Curran, S Óg Ó hAilpín; T Kenny, J O'Connor; P Cronin, N McCarthy (0-1), T McCarthy; B O'Connor (0-12, ten frees, one lineball), J Deane (0-4), C Naughton (0-3) Subs: P Horgan (0-1) for T McCarthy (34 mins), M Coleman for Naughton, (36 mins), Naughton for O'Sullivan (half-time).
GALWAY:J Skehill; A Cullinane, D Joyce, O Canning; S Kavanagh, J Lee, D Forde; F Healy, R Murray (0-1); I Tannian, K Hayes, A Kerins; D Hayes (0-1), J Canning (2-12, 1-0 pen, six frees, one lineball), N Healy (0-1). Subs: C Dervan for Joyce (22 mins), A Smith for K Hayes (44 mins), A Callanan for Kerins (52 mins); G Farragher for D Hayes ( 60 mins), C Donnellan for F Healy (64 mins).
RefereeB Kelly (Westmeath)
