Cork Hurlers - Part 2

[Crankycorner]

Here goes, but first remember this is a forum of opinions. So the General Counsel around here who put down anyone who said we weren’t good enough to win an AI over the last few months can go and do one…

1. DC is a horse of a man. He may even be hung like one for all I know. But for fuck sake he had had his turn and let us down more often than not. Eoin Downey or Eoin Roche should be holding that number 3 shirt by now.

2. ‘Roles Royce Joyce’ is not the second coming of Christ. He has some distance to go to being a top player and today showed it.

3. Biggest worry today for me was the subs. They just slotted in and carried on the same piss performance and efforts of those they replaced. Hayes is like Bambi on ice, he’s still probably wondering how Barron turned him inside out for that score. He should have been playing football yesterday.

4. Imagine being poor Sean Twomey on that bus journey back. We will give you a chance but our OAPS have squatters right in their starting jerseys so you’ll be evicted from the game first.

5. I am sick of hearing Hoggy owes us nothing. He fucking does, he owes us effort and a performance. He will continue to do so as long he plays for this county. His attitude on that pitch is shit. He spent half the game chatting to his man, the other breathing heavily with his hands on his hips, waiting to do his catwalk strut out to take a free. When he’s eventually dropped he will come out in the papers complaining anyway. He will be talked about here like Landers is within 3 years.

6. We are shite. The drought will not end in this decade.

Twomey can have absolutely no complaints about being called to the line.

 

[HondaGaels]

I went into the game sceptical about the starting 15 but I couldn't remember a Cork bench looking so strong so I was optimistic if it went wrong we had the fire power to put it right. How wrong was I. I thought that game was crying out for TOM and his physicality. No offence to him but Luke Meade isn't the first fella I'd turn to when there's a white hot battle in midfield and you're down two men. I don't want to give up hopes for the year but it's hard to be optimistic after that. Massive thanks to the 3 lads for their service down through the years but I really don't think any of them are up to it. I'd rather lose blooding in new lads than lose with the same old same old. Fair play Shane Barrett, had a rough championship last year but spear headed us today

 

[Horse of Gold]

Today was damming really. A real kick in the stomach.

It’s all very deflating, I find it hard to see us beating Clare given the form they are in and also in terms of personnel, I think they are a bad match up for us.

After last year Ryan noted one of the issues he had was working with too many players and not having a settled side. I look at this Cork squad and see loads of talent but I struggle to say with any confidence what our best 15 is. You look at any of the other top teams and you’ve a fairly good idea of who is going to play where.

So many players that Cork have are “square pegs for round holes” whereby you can play them midfield/half back/half forward.

I feel for the last 2/3/4 years we’ve all been debating is TOM a forward or back, where does TOC play, Fitz is a forward, Coleman can play here too.

I know we had injuries during the league which affected this however we don’t have any resemblance to a settled team. Wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if we had 5 changes for Clare next week.

 

[Charley Sheen]

The play the u20s brigade would want to wake up - the step up is enormous and has to be managed.

Pat Ryan is doing his best - losing a close game to a team who are as good as us on paper away from home isn’t a disaster.

 

[JimmyBarrySmurph]

I am somewhat of the opinion however is that this is how good these players are. Lots of good players. No great ones.

100%. Cork hurling in a nutshell
Players just aren’t there right now.
Clearly the brains don’t think anyone in their early 20s is good enough either.

 

[BBAWS.]

Twomey can have absolutely no complaints about being called to the line.

Of course he can. A horse of a man. We have been crying out for a that physicality for years. Lump a few done on him and see how he goes at least. I counted at least 3 other forwards who I would whip first.

 

[JimmyBarrySmurph]

I’d 100% rather get beat with young lads from the last few u20 teams than watching the same old fellas get beat by small margins over and over again . But the cycle continues and nothing changes

The “young lads” for the last decade aren’t good enough..

 

[Crankycorner]

Of course he can. A horse of a man. We have been crying out for a that physicality for years. Lump a few done on him and see how he goes at least. I counted at least 3 other forwards who I would whip first.

That’s not enough. Our two best forwards by far were Connolly and Barret. The other 4 were poor. For Twomey to justify his inclusion on physicality he either needs to set up scores or be fouled for frees. He did neither in that first half.

 

[red&blue]

Just home, gutted absolutely gutted, today was a huge setback for this group

Today loss was down to a number of factors, Waterford were much more hungry than we were and that is inexcusable. It’s not like we are laden down with success at senior level ffs

Physically we looked flat while Waterford were bouncing off the turf, again totally
Inexcusable

Tactically we were a well beaten docket today, picking the team we did today was a bad signal to our players. It shouted loud that we won’t stick with you if you are performing well, if there is a “better” player back available. We had 7 very consistently good defenders throughout the league and it looked like it would be a straight fight between Eoin Downey and Niall O Leary for the no 2 jersey yet neither started. We split up a very strong half back line for a player who has played 20? minutes inter county hurling in 2 years. No harm to Mark, he’s a great hurler, but The mind boggles that the selectors thought that was a good call

Just look at the first goal. High dropping ball on top of Mark Coleman and he got nowhere near it, Jamie Barron runs onto the break behind him and bang we were a goal down after a few minutes.

Then we spent the next 10 minutes having either Ger Millerick or Damien Cahalane as our sweeper, why the fuck we are playing one I don’t know but I’ll come back to that, but to end up with our two worst hurlers in defence as sweeper was crazy

After 15 minutes of being targeted at wing back Mark Coleman was switched to midfield and immediately came to life and had a storming game from then on. Why oh why did we get this call wrong in the first place? It worries me that we did

Sean Twomey had a tough debut, but he was no worse than a lot of other guys either, but what the fuck was he doing right corner foward for some of the first half? It was just like Deccie Dalton against Limerick last year. Mind boggling stuff

Now to waterford and that dreaded sweeper. Im sick of saying it but you will not beat the sweeper syatem unless you push up on them. Yet what do we do, play our own sweeper, and it wasn’t designated to one man, no it was whoever was free was the sweeper, and waterford outthought us on this one ensuring Cahalane or Millerick were the spare man, totally redundant marking space while waterford with the extra player ran us ragged in our foward line and dominated the game from there. If that actuallly was our plan you don’t start a Sean Twomey and 3 ageing players in the fowards and expect it to work, yet that is what we done.

The sun was baking down today yet poor Alan Connolly must have been friozen cold twiddling his thumbs waiting for the ball to come in. It was only when the game was gone from us that we started hitting ball into him and off he goes and gets a goal. The mind boggles why we thought it was a good tactic but we did until it was too little too late

Next Sunday is now do or die and the management have one opportunity to get this right, we need to be bold and put a proper team in place and play smart fast hurling getting the ball into Connolly and O Flynn . And we need to make changes quicker

My team for next week

PCollins
N O Leary, E. Downey, S O Donoghue
G Millerick, C Joyce, R Downey
M Coleman T O Connell
D Dalton, D Fitzgibbon, T O Mahony
S Barrett, A Connolly, R O Flynn

 

[JimmyBarrySmurph]

Watching Donal Og is just capping off what is an awfully depressing day, all predictable but very depressing