All-Ireland SHC Semi-final/Cork 1-16 Waterford 1-15: The tears of the Déise. Another wet day in Croke Park, where 61,753 mainly sodden souls turned up to watch, and another semi-final lost by Waterford. The most slender of barriers separated them from the promised land yesterday and the thrilling game they left behind was splashed with enough fuel for a great bonfire of regrets.
Cork rolled on with glacial certainty to yet another All-Ireland final. It has been a year of prosaic performances from Cork, none of which have been leavened by magic but all of which have drawn on the wells of certainty and experience life at the top brings.
The final, fraught stages yesterday were illustrative of the critical differences in nerve when a tight game is in injury time. Waterford twice needlessly lost possession in their own half in attempting to play short passes without being under pressure to do so. One such misadventure ended with Ken McGrath sliding rashly into Joe Deane at the expense of a free. Deane, out on the left touchline, calmly pointed the dead ball. It would be the winning margin.
Still Waterford were offered a chance. Play was pulled back in the final seconds of injury time and Waterford were given a free straight in front of the posts and 80 yards out. One expected Paul Flynn to come out and launch a howitzer. It fell instead to Ken McGrath. But Donal Óg Cusack, nerveless all day, batted the ball clear. There was a scrum, some pinballing of the sliotar and then the final, long, mournful whistle to end Waterford's summer.
Waterford will lament this game more keenly than the two recent semi-finals they surrendered. Cork have looked slightly jaded all summer but if a game is contestable in the final five to 10 minutes they will win it through strength of will and conviction.
Waterford, when they started playing yesterday, had the opportunities to make a clean getaway. The game was lost before Joe Deane's cold-blooded free.
For most of the first half Waterford looked jumpy. And they took some 33 minutes to score from play. Eoin Kelly's free-taking and Cork's shyness in front of goal kept the issue in doubt, though, and once Dan Shanahan had broken the ice with a score from play, a couple more followed before the break and it was eight points all at the interval.
Significantly, the predicted move of Michael Walsh to midfield had come about in the 29th minute and the immediate adjustment in the percentage of possession available to Waterford gave ballast to those who claim Walsh should have started there.
When Walsh switched, Waterford tried to shift Eoin Kelly to right half forward on Seán Óg Ó hAilpín, but SeáÓg followed Shanahan into corner forward, with Brian Murphy coming out to the left-half-back spot. It was that sort of game, relentlessly tactical as each side searched for a chink in the other's armour.
Cork, whose full-forward line were expected to scythe through thickets of Waterford defenders, found themselves in the unusual position of seeing a huge amount of possession find its way to Timmy McCarthy. The ball coming into the full-forward line after the first few minutes was pressured and tentative, and it took all of Brian Corcoran's wisdom to steal two points and set another up for Neil Ronan.
It was an ordinary enough first half but parity suggested the second half would bring better things. It did. The game blossomed into an epic.
Waterford came out of the traps like greyhounds with firecrackers tied to their tails. From the throw-in the ball broke upfield. Shanahan, now mano-a-mano with Diarmuid O'Sullivan, got out first and with a lovely touch declined to make the pick-up but flicked the ball to his right into the path of Eoin McGrath. The corner forward picked his spot and drove the ball. Donal Óg saved.
McGrath had another pot, this time a ground stroke. Donal Óg saved. The ball shot free on the other side of the goal and Kelly tapped in from a few yards out.
Almost straight away Séamus Prendergast bolstered the lead with a point. Waterford were four clear and people were still queuing for the half-time hot dog.
Cork are implacable, however. Neither the pattern nor the game plan ever changes. They doused Waterford, the half-back line winning every ball for a quarter of an hour. Waterford didn't score from play between the 36th and 63rd minutes.
By then the damage was done. John Allen made his bones as a manager last year with a couple of inspired substitutions in the semi-final against Clare. He pulled the same trick yesterday.
Cork were back to within two points when the game-plan seemed to stall. Corcoran and Ronan missed chances in quick succession. The margin remained unaltered for 10 minutes.
Allen called ashore Ronan. On came Cathal Naughton an apprentice from last year's minors.
Result? First touch, on 57 minutes, a fine point. Second touch, on 59 minutes, a take from a Joe Deane pass, a turn and a fine goal. Cork were two ahead and Waterford would never fully recover.
As we slid toward full time Ronan Curran seemed to grow in stature, picking balls out of the clouds and driving them back at Waterford's defence. Diarmuid O'Sullivan was his usual fearsome Croke Park self. SeáÓg cleared a mountain of ball. It was that type of afternoon for Cork. No fancy or frills. Lots of men standing on burning decks.
Some generous refereeing, a couple of points from Mullane and one from Eoin McGrath kept Waterford heads above the surface but the current was running against them. The final whistle brought the familiar heartbreak.
Cork celebrated like it was 1999 and they were young garsúns breaking through again. Seventy minutes separate them from the immortality bestowed on three-in-a-row teams.
You can sense the weight of expectation comes near to bending them sometimes, but their elemental will is a joy to watch on days like yesterday.
CORK: D Óg Cusack; Murphy, D O'Sullivan, P Mulcahy; J Gardiner, R Curran, S Óg Ó hAilpín; T Kenny (0-1), J O'Connor (0-2); T McCarthy (0-3), N McCarthy, N Ronan (0-3); B O'Connor, B Corcoran (0-2), J Deane (0-4, four frees). Subs: C Naughton (1-1) for Ronan (56 mins), K Murphy (Sarsfields) for N McCarthy (67 mins).
WATERFORD: C Hennessy; D Prendergast, T Feeney, E Murphy; T Browne, K McGrath (0-1, free), J Murray; E Kelly (1-7, pts all frees), B Phelan, D Shanahan (0-1), S Prendergast (0-1), J Kennedy, J Mullane (0-4), M Walsh, E McGrath (0-1). Subs: P Flynn for Kennedy (45 mins), S O'Sullivan for Phelan (55 mins).
Referee: B Gavin (Offaly).
