After an All-Ireland final where 75 points were shared, and which was won by just one, the easy thing for Pat Ryan to do would have been to point to referee Johnny Murphy’s decisions.
Murphy sided against Cork on three significant occasions; for a penalty call involving Robbie O’Flynn late in normal time, when the same player had his jersey tugged at the end of extra-time, perhaps costing Cork an equaliser, and earlier when a possible 65 wasn’t given.
The Cork manager was not interested in going for the jugular though.
“Somebody said that to me,” responded Ryan when informed that O’Flynn had his jersey pulled when attempting to strike the equalising point in garbage time. “To be honest, I didn’t see it. We can’t do anything about it now. We just have to move on and see where we go.”
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On the call regarding the ‘65, when a Seamus Harnedy effort looked like it may have deflected out at the Hill 16 End, Ryan again shrugged.
“From where I was, back on the opposition ‘45, it looked like it,” he said. “But I don’t know, to be honest. I don’t think that that affected it [the outcome]. Obviously there are a couple of decisions that go your way and don’t go your way. At the end of the day, Clare are the champions and we won’t be giving out about any of that stuff.”
Ryan felt that Cork’s own shortcomings were more significant in the wash up, particularly in the second quarter of the game when Clare belatedly came to life.
“To be honest, we allowed too many short puckouts,” he said, reflecting on how the game suddenly turned Clare’s way. “They were able to work the ball out and we lost our shape inside in the full forward line, trying to tackle from behind.
“We just gave them too many short puck-outs in the first-half and they worked the ball out very well. I think their stats were very good on that, the stats on their long puckouts probably weren’t as good in the first half.
“We just gave them too many short puckouts and we lost our shape and they got back into it. But look, there were loads of ebbs and flows in the game over the periods of time. They did a lot of good things that troubled us, we troubled them as well but we’re obviously disappointed overall.”
Cork still managed to take the game to extra-time and, more than that, to hit the additional period with momentum on their side.
“Our shot selection was probably okay, bad execution more than anything,” reflected Ryan of the extra 20 minutes or so. “We had a couple of opportunities to take scores and didn’t take them and at that stage going into that last bit of time, every score was vital. It just gives you that bit of momentum if you’re getting them.
“It was probably played over 100-odd minutes and I think we just missed too many goal opportunities. We had a couple of great goal chances and we didn’t take them and didn’t give the last final ball better. That was probably our undoing.”
And yet they had players who enhanced their reputations despite the defeat, Harnedy foremost.
“We were disappointed we had to take him off,” said Ryan. “He was having a fantastic game for us, a great warrior for us and showed his worth to our team today but he was just carrying a bit of a hamstring, came out in the second-half and even got a couple of scores in that situation but we couldn’t leave him on, we had to take him off.”
Pat Horgan managed to jump into the history books too, finishing the season as the Championship’s all-time leading scorer, if not an All-Ireland medallist.
“I know people don’t believe it but he doesn’t actually read into the top of the scoring charts thing at all,” said Ryan. “He just chases after the whole fact of being able to play hurling with Cork. That is the main aim all the time and Patrick will be back next year ready to go.”
As for O’Flynn, who could have tied the game up and forced an August 3rd replay, Ryan refused to apportion any blame.
“Sure lots of fellas made mistakes and had misses and stuff like that,” he said. “From our point of view, the goal opportunities that we missed, that was the key to the game I think.”
