All-Ireland SHC final Clare v Cork, Croke Park, 3.30
Referee: Johnny Murphy (Limerick)
On the Saturday night between the All-Ireland semi-finals, thoughts ran to how Clare might get on against Limerick in what would have been a third meeting between the counties. There were cheery notions that the frontier rivalry created its own dynamic and that there was nothing Clare would rather do than burst the five-in-a-row bubble.
After Cork’s high-energy ram-raid on Limerick, revisionism – and reality – set in. The champions had always been difficult opponents for Clare whereas Cork hadn’t. The margins might have been wafer-thin but Brian Lohan’s men were always on the right side of them.
Now to the big question of the weekend: to what extent are Cork now a transformed entity since the first defeat of Limerick in May? Did that empower them for the second win and does it mean they have now surpassed Clare?
There are good reasons to be sceptical. Firstly, for all the drama of Limerick’s trip to and reversal of fortune in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, Cork had already registered improvement in the match with Clare.
In the unpredictable shake-out of the season, it’s possible to mislay the urgent detail that characterised the match. It was believed that whoever lost was gone from the championship and Cork’s reaction after losing reflected that bleak prognosis.
It is also relevant that Clare have improved. Conor Leen and Tony Kelly didn’t start and the latter didn’t play at all. Cork show just one change from that afternoon.
Other straws in the wind were that Patrick Collins, unlike two weeks ago, had a hard time delivering puck-outs and Clare’s wing forwards, David Fitzgerald and Peter Duggan caused real problems.
Shane O’Donnell was what he has been all season, a 24-carat menace, and there was real dynamism to their forward play with Mark Rodgers also thriving with 1-6, 1-4 from play.
Collins has gone on to redeem himself with a battery of fast-twitch restarts and some excellent goalkeeping against Limerick.
The win in Páirc Uí Chaoimh is considered Clare’s best performance of the championship, a judgment mitigated by the sending-off of opposing captain Seán O’Donoghue for a gratuitous second yellow-card offence.
Since then, Cork’s discipline has improved significantly and the match with Limerick, two weeks later, marked a new tough line when Eoin Downey was replaced on 23 minutes, having picked up a yellow and his potential exposure to a second wasn’t considered worth the risk. A fortnight ago, however, he was allowed the luxury of a yellow in the 33rd minute and not replaced but by then the red card habit appeared to have been kicked.
Such things can be capricious but it’s not only cards. Will Johnny Murphy be happy to let the fast puck-outs favoured by both counties, fly? Is he going to crack down on hand passing, given the embarrassing mistaken calls in both semi-finals?
Clare have improving of their own to address. They have been bedevilled by lapses of concentration at both ends of the field. Had Kilkenny taken their chances in the first half, they would be renewing the old rivalry with Cork this weekend.
Inaccuracy has also been a big bugbear for Brian Lohan. The third-quarter squandermania against Limerick and Waterford in the Munster round robin ended up costing them a win in the first case and a nervy imperative to convert a 65 in the second in order to snatch a result that should have been comfortably theirs.
Even the widely reviled Munster final was less of a capitulation to Limerick than a succession of dismal wides eventually undermining the whole effort. Can this be rectified?
At their best both teams are capable of great attacking flow but the corollary appears to be sizeable concessions, 29 by Cork and 27 by Clare: a great formula for a shoot-out, which this may well turn out to be.
Clare’s half backs have been decent by and large. Diarmuid Ryan has improved on his more subdued form whereas David McInerney earned himself the Man of the Match award for shutting down the threat of Adrian Mullen.
Centre back, John Conlon has been in the spotlight in the lead-up because of the huge influence wielded by the man he is to mark, Shane Barrett. Conlon isn’t as slow as the widespread perception suggests but that’s in a way irrelevant because he’s still nowhere near as fast as Barrett.
The tendency to gift-wrap goals sits uneasily with the presence of a hungry full-forward line like Cork’s. Eibhear Quilligan kept Clare alive in the semi-final but those interventions can’t always be relied on.
The other star of the Clare resistance to Kilkenny was Aidan McCarthy, whose free taking meltdown in the Munster final led to his being dropped only to return for the All-Ireland semi-final and deliver a flawless performance. A repeat will be necessary.
Ultimately though, Clare are relying on a little more to go right for them than Cork and that can be the slim difference.
Verdict: Cork
