MUNSTER SHC SEMI-FINAL/Tipperary 1-19 Cork 1-13:HISTORY HAD its moment in Páirc Uí Chaoimh yesterday. Tipperary, feisty and hopeful rather than out-and-out confident, went to Cork and dismantled the shackles of their 85-year losing run and dumped them into the Lee. For all the significance of the sequence stretching back over a surprisingly small number of matches, just eight, it was a businesslike dispatch by the National League winners and has surely rung time on a fine Cork team.
How do these things happen? Tipperary arrived in good fettle but surely no better than many teams over the past nine decades. It was an exciting championship match, maybe added to by the frisson of newly broken ground, but they've hardly been in short supply when these counties meet.
Cork were smooth and practised in the opening exchanges but like a card player bluffing, they had nothing in hand when their opponents calmly stayed at the table and called them. Yet that didn't look the likely narrative after 23 minutes when the home side led by seven, 1-8 to 0-4, a fair reflection of the facility with which they hit their stride and strung together the familiar quick passing and hard running to open up space and exploit it with the usual considered distribution.
The new-look attack was holding up reasonably well and the tactic of withdrawing Cathal Naughton to around centrefield was proving a major play in those early stages. The player described by Jimmy Barry-Murphy as the fastest he's ever seen playing for Cork popped up everywhere in that first quarter and his pace opened up opportunities that he availed of with a respectable three first-half points and no wides. In the eighth minute Kevin Canty and Timmy McCarthy engineered an opening and Ben O'Connor swooped through the middle of the defence for the opening goal.
Naughton was facilitated in his early success by Tipp's stasis in confronting the tactic. They retained the conventional, three-man full-back line until about the 25th minute when debutant corner back Conor O'Brien was dispatched to keep the Newtownshandrum road runner company. Although Naughton's threat didn't evaporate it was more successfully contained.
Containment was the order of the day elsewhere as Tipp's defence hauled itself back into contention. Eamonn Corcoran made important interventions, blocking Timmy McCarthy at one stage when the big wing forward had moved in under a dropping ball.
At centrefield, Shane McGrath carried the burden of the challenge, as James Woodlock struggled to get to the pace of the match as in the early stages Jerry O'Connor and Tom Kenny (annoyingly togged in each other's number) looked as if they would resume normal service by running Tipp ragged. Whether in consequence the match turned sharply around the same time as O'Brien's switch. Eoin Kelly, labouring in the restrictive orbit of Brian Murphy and not shooting at his most accurately anyway, got one blue-chip chance and signalled Tipp were back in business.
When impressive debutant Séamus Callinan and Lar Corbett - whose movement and darting runs on to Brendan Cummins's puck-outs plunged Diarmuid O'Sullivan into crisis - combined to give Kelly a nice ball low and in front of him, he read Murphy's block, swivelled and the ball exploded past Donal Cusack to blow open the match at 1-4 to 1-8.
Cork would approach half-time scoreless from Seán Ó hAilpín's point in the 23rd minute that had established the high-water mark of their dominion and saw a revived opposition shoot 1-3 without reply.
Suddenly all of Cork's wides and inadequately exploited chances were haunting them and creating the nagging fear they had left fatally little between themselves and the visitors at the break.
Unexpectedly, Cork regained control in the third quarter but again the scores didn't flow. Naughton launched himself on another sizzle, this time down the left and pointed. Pa Cronin, whose anxiety to get on the scoreboard in his new position at full forward culminated in four wides for the afternoon, had a shot for goal which rebounded just beyond Paudie O'Sullivan's lunge. A couple of minutes later the latter, who looked promising on limited rations but was slightly surprisingly given the shot on his debut, blazed a penalty that Cummins blocked and McGrath cleared.
In the 49th minute with only a point to show for their superiority since the interval, Cork found themselves becalmed on 1-9 each. The final quarter began with a sense that maybe Cork were on the way, with Ben and Jerry O'Connor opening a two-point lead but Kelly bridged the gap.
Despite the history and the wasted chances, the match looked set to go the distance and the sense of unease for Cork was palpable. By now Micheál Webster had been introduced at full forward and despite the sizeable difference between his threat and that of Corbett the big Loughmore-Castleiney player proved very much up to the task of scripting a sequel to Diarmuid O'Sullivan's horror afternoon to date.
In the space of a few minutes he laid off for Kelly, scored himself and drew a free also for Kelly to push Tipp into a lead they never relinquished. Grace notes were struck by Callinan, Corcoran from a lineball, Kelly with an off-the-shoulder flourish, Corbett gliding a ball over. All the while Cork laboured to stem the flow. But the established forwards, controversially left on the bench, weren't able to turn it around.
Ominously for the attempted rejuvenation by Gerald McCarthy, O'Sullivan, Cronin and Canty were all called ashore and Joe Deane, given a few minutes to turn things around, looked sharp as he tried to create openings from chances that had they fallen to him earlier would have been dispatched.
And so the 85-year jinx was lifted and time looks also to have run out for Cork.
TIPPERARY: 1. B Cummins; 2. E Buckley, 3. P Curran, 4. C O'Brien; 5. E Corcoran (0-1, lineball, 6. C O'Mahony, 7. S Maher; 8. J Woodlock, 9. S McGrath (0-1); 10. S Butler, 11. S Callinan (0-3), 12. R O'Dwyer; 13. E Kelly (1-7, five points frees), 14 L Corbett (0-4), 15. W Ryan (0-1). Subs: 24. P Kerwick (0-1) for O'Dwyer (33 mins), 19. B Dunne for Woodlock (45 mins), 29. M Webster (0-1) for Butler (46 mins), 25. J O'Brien for Ryan (54 mins), 20. D Egan for Callinan (73 mins).
CORK: 1. D Cusack; 2. S O'Neill, 3. D O'Sullivan, 4. B Murphy; 5. J Gardiner, 6. R Curran, 7. S Ó hAilpín (0-1); 9. T Kenny (0-1), 8. J O'Connor (0-2); 10. B O'Connor (1-3, two points frees), 11, K Canty, 12. T McCarthy; 13. P O'Sullivan (0-1), 14. P Cronin, 15. C Naughton (0-4). Subs: 23. N McCarthy for T McCarthy (47 mins), 28. K Murphy for Canty (47 mins), 22. B Corry (0-1) for Cronin (54 mins), 26. J Deane for P O'Sullivan (67 mins), 29. P Horgan for N McCarthy (68 mins).
YELLOW CARDS: Tipperary: C O'Brien (27 mins), P Curran (42 mins), B Dunne (65 mins), C O'Mahony (73 mins). Cork: C Naughton (27 mins), P Cronin (35+ mins), B Murphy (53 mins), D O'Sullivan (67 mins). RED CARDS: None.
Referee: B Kelly (Westmeath).
Attendance: 42,823.
