Two choices for Dublin after yesterday. They can either put this dismal performance down as a bad day at the office or they tear up the blueprints and start again. Cork will hardly care which option Dublin take, they are still shaking their heads about how easy it all was.
Mitigating circumstances or excuses first. Dublin had a large number of players in colleges action this week. They also had one or two injuries. However, unless the players who remained have been required to donate their brains to the college boys this doesn't explain the glum dimness of yesterday's performance.
Cork went two points up early on when Brendan Jer O'Sullivan realised that for unspecified reasons he had been given the freedom of Parnell Park. After that neither Cork nor O'Sullivan really looked back. There were sporadic hints of great things from Ciaran Whelan, but eventually Nicholas Walsh came to be the dominant midfielder. Meanwhile, the Dublin half back line struggled to maintain their dignity, Peadar Andrews looked ill at ease back in the corner and only Jason Sherlock was showing any inventiveness of pace in the forwards.
All things considered Larry Tompkins will be pleased with the growth of this Cork team. Since they opened for business with a satisfying plundering of Kerry's morale they have endured two narrow defeats in tough games and have had to get along without their influential Nemo contingent. Yesterday they worked hard and moved fluently, and when all components are restored to their rightful places they will have better options and shorter odds.
Dublin, on the other hand, have problems. So many of the defenders available to Tommy Lyons look like they suffer from wing back syndrome, the main symptom of which is a desire to be seen running with the ball at all times and an allergy to hard spade work like man-marking and tough tackling. Dublin's delivery is as slow and unreliable as that of An Post. Poor Jason Sherlock must have made 50 runs into space, only to see the play slow and a ball ballooned into the crowded area in front of the Cork goal.
Sherlock, whose absence from the side has been a mystery to many, got his first start of the season and scored two perfect points in the first half when Dublin were still attempting to play lively football. Sherlock's best patch co-incided with a little run wherein they scored five points without reply to take the lead.
As the going got worse, however, less and less got through to the Dublin full forward line and Sherlock seemed not to have a licence to come out and forage on the 40, where he might be involved in the manufacture and supply of good chances.
Cork had no need for a service like that. Everything they tried to execute they tried at speed and again and again. Prairies of space opened up in the Dublin defence and Cork only began to appreciate their luck late in the first half. Dublin's half back line, which for so long had sturdy turrets like Eamon Heary and Kieran Barr guarding it, now makes do with an open border policy and contains no player that opposition runners think twice about gliding past.
Cork slipped through at will. Declan Cahill had a tough debut, and when Paul Casey and he swopped places the Lucan man did no better. O'Sullivan gorged himself on possession and beside him Jim O'Donoghue was kept more than well supplied on his first league start.
As Dublin struggled to find a rhythm Cork diversified, playing the ball direct and early on occasion, running with it the next time, stringing together the passes the next. O'Sullivan slung over his side's 12th point in the 65th minute, having taken a long ball in space. A minute later O'Donoghue was on the end of a movement of nine quick passes and inserted another nick in Dublin's hide.
CORK: K Murphy; A O'Connor, A Lynch, N O'Donovan; S Levis, E Sexton, N O'Leary; N Murphy, G Canty (0-1); BJ O'Sullivan (0-6), J O'Donoghue (0-2), J Miskella; J O'Shea (0-1), M O'Cronin (0-3, 3 frees), C Crowley (0-2). Subs: K O'Dwyer for Murphy (61 mins), C McCarthy (0-1) for Miskella (62 mins), T Kenny for O'Cronin (62 mins).
DUBLIN: B Murphy; D Henry, P Christie, P Andrews; P Casey, D Cahill, C Goggins; C Whelan (0-2), J Magee (0-1); C Moran, B Cullen, S Connell (0-1); J Sherlock (0-2), R Cosgrove (0-2, 2f), J McNally. Subs: D O'Mahoney for Cahill, A Brogan for McNally (h-t); D Magee for Moran (53); P Griffin for Andrews (60); E Crennan for Connell (68).
Referee: B Crowe (Cavan).
