Cork Hurlers - Part 2

[TonyCork80]

you wouldnt trust high performance players to sit in a room and trash out some issues but you expect them to go out in all ireland semi finals or finals and do the right things under immense pressure?

of course it would need to be handled properly, everything at that level is handled properly, well mostly!

Even though sometimes the players may have private meetings themselves, why shouldn’t management be in the room? they are part of the bubble and don’t necessarily have to be overly critical of players, but they do need to hear all the issues, and some of them could be about themselves and again like the players, they would have to leave their egos at the door

but the bottom line if any players let their egos get in the way of internal criticism aimed at improving the team then you have found a red flag straight away

I find it absolutely incredible that some posters think this is an issue

Maybe your experiences of sport and the workplace are different to mine but personally I see very weak if any correlation between the ability of people to speak well in meetings and their ability to actually deliver on what they say. Sure what purpose does it serve at this point? The time for a meetings is long gone now. And you know the way Cork is, the gates won't be locked after the meeting and Player X will be supposed to have been at Player Ys throat and all the Glen/Barrs/East Cork/North Cork crowd will be on the outs with them.

As far as I'm concerned there is no Cork senior hurling team at the moment. The jerseys were handed back at half five last Saturday and there will be plenty of opportunities to discuss what went wrong for the Cork hurling team of 2027 but at the moment I'd struggle to see the point. Let them earn the jerseys back first by their actual deeds in adversity in the club championship then by training and then if selected, in the early games of 2027. They are their club's players now too and the idea they'd miss another night there trekking up to Cork for some fucking AA meeting above in Pairc Ui Chaoimh isn't fair on anyone.

These big honesty meetings were all the rage there for a few years when a few too many fellas were getting rugby autobiographies for Christmas.

Ultimately the Cork senior hurling team of 2026 is now dead. In the broadest of terms they hit par by making a semi final. It wasn't all bad, a load of the fellas on the podcast and punditry circuit making the few bob off twisting the knife in them this week were confidently telling us in April that they wouldnt get out of Munster. Like in 25, League and Munster championship was generally quite good and all Ireland championship was disastrous. Some great days but both ended in beatings that will be spoken about for many years. Park it now, let them back to their primary loyalty which is the club and let the 2027 Cork team deal with it and have whatever meetings need to be had.

 

[latchico]

Christ above, what a gammy few days. Before the harsh detail it's important to acknowledge an amateur group of lads trying to give their all for Cork, sacrificing a lot, crossing the white line & giving some great days to supporters this season. They're hurting more than any of us now. The abuse that's been dished out to them this week outside the county on national platforms is an absolute disgrace. Lads like Mullane and co talk about mental health and online abuse etc re amateur young players and then the same fellas couldn't have been more spiteful and vitriolic sticking the knife in this week. Compare it to KK not getting out of Leinster, also suffering collapses... sugar-coated 'poor Derek' soft tones for the week that followed. Unfortunately, we are now the England soccer team - high profile talented players, huge support, huge pressure and anticipation and a massive swathe of the country willing us to fail, and finding it hilarious when we do.

I'll get to issues pre the semi final but in terms of the game itself, watching back the tv coverage shows some similar things to last year but also some other aspects that make it worse than last year for sure. Galway were brilliant but they showed how they are a work in progress at times and certainly it wasn't a performance by them remotely near what Tipp produced in last years final. Unlike Tipp, last Saturday the door was repeatedly opened for us to come roaring back into the game but we turned down the invite 5 or 6 times. So of note in that first half:

• The plan seems quite clear on both sides. Galway do what they do, and they give Cork the short ball and space to do whatever we want inside our 45. We're ready for this and probe across the pitch and try and beat the dual sweeper thing (mannions either side) and on the ball we do this quite well at times.
• Straight away it's clear however that when they turn over the ball, they're under no pressure from cork and they consistently get 2 short passes away without contact of any sort
• Straight away it's clear their out ball of Rabbitte is working too well - he becomes 70% of their puc out targets I reckon, and if they're not shooting from distance 70% of their open play target. R Downey is not within the 15m we expected him to be on that contest and a problem is evident after 10 minutes
• We're also up and running with unforced edgy errors. Tim is off it from the throw in, a mile off it (as per last year. R Downey lets a ball get taken off him he never normally would. Connolly gets a ball taken out of his hand by Mannion, and on 30 mins when we are 5 up, Barrett taps the ball off the bas without pressure and it hits the ground... galway turnover is then Cahalane yellow 5 seconds later
• Our purple patch from 18 to 30min (Galway no score and we go from 3 down to 5 up) is notably unfeverish - we are on top but casual. Tim and Barrett have an exchange of passes that's just a joke - either of them could have shot. Galway are calm and slow the game down while playing poorly.
• It's now evident we have no intention of shooting from distance, a bizarre development into the scoring end Davin stand. And while we seek 1 type of score, Galway (and any other top team) are going after every type of score. Morrissey scores from corner back in an embarrassing training game fashion on the 34th min with Glennon receiving a puc out and jogging to the 65. We were well on our way to our lowest hooks, blocks, tackle tally of the year (82)

Half time and you'd think these issues would be addressed - I thought Buckley and Roche would be on at the start of the second half, and that we'd sit deeper, but no Galway see how much of a sitting duck we are and push up and they take over quickly but shockingly easily.

• As mentioned earlier, Galway have some excellent periods of play but their purple patch is only a few minutes when you watch it back, we are responding with a malfunction even when they go from purple patch to a flatter few minutes
• Galway respond to the Fitzgibbon red with 4 wides in a row
• Unlike last year we get loads of opportunities to get back into it (from what is on re-watch an ok Galway performance) but we can't take them - we don't want to shoot a score. That gaelic statsman graphic of our 11 (yes 11) shots and where on the pitch they come from vs Galways 25 sums it up. Our usual hot spot from a shooting perspective is the 12 position... this was a dead zone for shooting for us all day.

View attachment 51732
A few kept battling to the end (SOD), others battled but headlessly (Barrett), others not really anywhere to be seen.

Not dissimilar to last year, as the year progressed we fell back to what we knew - picking the same players, and playing the same way. Ben was doing great stuff early doors - an incredibly tough pre-season, making calls on some lads, new faces during the league. But the Limerick RR game saw a switch from zonal to man on man in the half back line to turn things around & 3 up top (it works v Limerick) and then a couple of weeks later we see the 3 inside against waterford - those couple of weeks we were just continuing on what we always did. Collins selection for that Offaly league game after Paidi sul did so well in Nolan park, Connolly's selection from the get-go... so many opportunities to change the dial and bit by bit nothing changed. We couldn't even keep Buckley playing at all-star form on the field.

The 3 up with Alan Walsh really fails on work-rate. Connolly was the furthest from goal and he doesn't make effective tackles or turnovers. If you still expect Rob to sit, and TOC to cover Rob then you're kinda accepting the opposition will find space and free and tap over scores and we think we'll score more. Tackle counts drop.

We are assessing players on technical and physical attributes (we've the best players in the county in the squad you'll hear from most) but clearly now we don't have the best players in the county on the team as there are 2 other attributes - tactical and psychological, and we've a rake of lads not at the races on those areas. Last Saturday a couple of lads were making unforced errors they hadn't made all year... why then and there and not in other high pressure games over the last 2 years? Last year I thought mgmt decisions - tactical and personnel - was the main problem; this year mgmt were also at fault in those areas (maybe worse this time?) but it's hard to deny now that the common denominator is a cluster of experienced hurlers, some of the best in the country we think that can't correct course in croke park. And of course the critique is full of absolute horseshit (some dopes calling the Munster final a second half collapse) but we are now the England football team and apparently you can now throw any sort of shite the way of the cork team and it's fair. Joshua Ryan leapfrogs SOD into an all-star team - yep that makes sense.

There's a parallel universe where this year was 3 in a row, and ROF is a cult hero for his 1-1 in the '24 final that got the ball rolling. It's a fucking crock of shit and no point in calling it anything else but we keep going, we have the ingredients to fix it and get back to the top - hope we can be a bit more radical, ruthless, more honest and harder working when it really matters.

Fair play Morello. I always love reading your posts. They're spot on and measured as well. Nicely written.

 

[poulgorm]

You can overanalyse the match against Galway. I am of the view that Galway won because in the second half they upped the tempo and simply outfought Cork. Were there many rucks where a Cork player emerged with the ball? Were there any at all? Even when Cork had more players in the ruck than Galway?
To me, the team that wants it the most, wins the majority of the rucks. Winning rucks has nothing to do with tactics: it's all to do with an almost insane desire to win.
This just my recollection, having watched the game on tv.

And this lateral, pointless passing of the ball across the backline. They must have spent too much time watching the Cork footballers.

 

[Cook My Sock]

You couldn't really just stick a load of players in a room and tell em have at it though.
Risk of fingerpointing, personal attacks, splitting into cliques etc etc Could have a real negative effect on team cohesion.
Something like that would need to have a well agreed structure, a mediator and management should not be in the room the whole time.
If it's managed properly it can clear the air, build trust, make lads tougher but in the wrong hands it could be a bit of a problem.

White collar boxing, let the lads puck the heads off each other

 

[StoneHouse]

You can overanalyse the match against Galway. I am of the view that Galway won because in the second half they upped the tempo and simply outfought Cork. Were there many rucks where a Cork player emerged with the ball? Were there any at all? Even when Cork had more players in the ruck than Galway?
To me, the team that wants it the most, wins the majority of the rucks. Winning rucks has nothing to do with tactics: it's all to do with an almost insane desire to win.
This just my recollection, having watched the game on tv.

And this lateral, pointless passing of the ball across the backline. They must have spent too much time watching the Cork footballers.

So you’re losing the ruck ball up the field and your solution is too keep driving it as long as you can from the puck out? How does that make sense?

 

[StoneHouse]

White collar boxing, let the lads puck the heads off each other

They’ve done that already in the pre season

 

[red&blue]

Maybe your experiences of sport and the workplace are different to mine but personally I see very weak if any correlation between the ability of people to speak well in meetings and their ability to actually deliver on what they say. Sure what purpose does it serve at this point? The time for a meetings is long gone now. And you know the way Cork is, the gates won't be locked after the meeting and Player X will be supposed to have been at Player Ys throat and all the Glen/Barrs/East Cork/North Cork crowd will be on the outs with them.

Tony, this isnt a workplace, this is the Cork Senior Hurling Team, I dont know what experience you have in a hurling dressing room but it thrives on 3 things, trust, honesty and standards, if theres an underlying issue then you need to solve that asap because if its left to fester it will spread, holding hands and singing kumbula wont fix this

And its not about fellas being able to speak well in the meeting, that’s irrelevant, its about fellas listening to their team mates and holding their hands up if they are being called out correctly, and again if they cant accept what is being said and fixing it Ben has a problem which needs fixing

Trust is about being honest and knowing what you say will not be repeated outside the bubble. If like you say things do get out of the meeting then Ben has a problem which needs fixing

Do you seriously think i want these lads to have that meeting this week? That would be ridiculous, the players are back with their clubs and will stay there until they are finished

As far as I'm concerned there is no Cork senior hurling team at the moment. The jerseys were handed back at half five last Saturday and there will be plenty of opportunities to discuss what went wrong for the Cork hurling team of 2027 but at the moment I'd struggle to see the point. Let them earn the jerseys back first by their actual deeds in adversity in the club championship then by training and then if selected, in the early games of 2027. They are their club's players now too and the idea they'd miss another night there trekking up to Cork for some fucking AA meeting above in Pairc Ui Chaoimh isn't fair on anyone.

Spot on but again its not an AA meeting thats needed and if you cant see that i cant help that

These big honesty meetings were all the rage there for a few years when a few too many fellas were getting rugby autobiographies for Christmas.

Again ask Limerick about honesty meetings, if Sean Finn has an issue with Diarmuid Byrnes not defending properly he will tell him and they will find a way to fix it. Thats fcukin leadership

Ultimately the Cork senior hurling team of 2026 is now dead. In the broadest of terms they hit par by making a semi final. It wasn't all bad,

They hit below par, an all ireland final loss would have been par, its irrelevant anyway because our team are at the level where winning the all ireland is the only successful year

a load of the fellas on the podcast and punditry circuit making the few bob off twisting the knife in them this week were confidently telling us in April that they wouldnt get out of Munster.

So what, all that should matter is what happens within the group, the punter excuse is just that, an excuse

Like in 25, League and Munster championship was generally quite good and all Ireland championship was disastrous. Some great days but both ended in beatings that will be spoken about for many years. Park it now, let them back to their primary loyalty which is the club and let the 2027 Cork team deal with it and have whatever meetings need to be had.

At last, you got there

 

[red&blue]

Christ above, what a gammy few days. Before the harsh detail it's important to acknowledge an amateur group of lads trying to give their all for Cork, sacrificing a lot, crossing the white line & giving some great days to supporters this season. They're hurting more than any of us now. The abuse that's been dished out to them this week outside the county on national platforms is an absolute disgrace. Lads like Mullane and co talk about mental health and online abuse etc re amateur young players and then the same fellas couldn't have been more spiteful and vitriolic sticking the knife in this week. Compare it to KK not getting out of Leinster, also suffering collapses... sugar-coated 'poor Derek' soft tones for the week that followed. Unfortunately, we are now the England soccer team - high profile talented players, huge support, huge pressure and anticipation and a massive swathe of the country willing us to fail, and finding it hilarious when we do.

I'll get to issues pre the semi final but in terms of the game itself, watching back the tv coverage shows some similar things to last year but also some other aspects that make it worse than last year for sure. Galway were brilliant but they showed how they are a work in progress at times and certainly it wasn't a performance by them remotely near what Tipp produced in last years final. Unlike Tipp, last Saturday the door was repeatedly opened for us to come roaring back into the game but we turned down the invite 5 or 6 times. So of note in that first half:

• The plan seems quite clear on both sides. Galway do what they do, and they give Cork the short ball and space to do whatever we want inside our 45. We're ready for this and probe across the pitch and try and beat the dual sweeper thing (mannions either side) and on the ball we do this quite well at times.
• Straight away it's clear however that when they turn over the ball, they're under no pressure from cork and they consistently get 2 short passes away without contact of any sort
• Straight away it's clear their out ball of Rabbitte is working too well - he becomes 70% of their puc out targets I reckon, and if they're not shooting from distance 70% of their open play target. R Downey is not within the 15m we expected him to be on that contest and a problem is evident after 10 minutes
• We're also up and running with unforced edgy errors. Tim is off it from the throw in, a mile off it (as per last year. R Downey lets a ball get taken off him he never normally would. Connolly gets a ball taken out of his hand by Mannion, and on 30 mins when we are 5 up, Barrett taps the ball off the bas without pressure and it hits the ground... galway turnover is then Cahalane yellow 5 seconds later
• Our purple patch from 18 to 30min (Galway no score and we go from 3 down to 5 up) is notably unfeverish - we are on top but casual. Tim and Barrett have an exchange of passes that's just a joke - either of them could have shot. Galway are calm and slow the game down while playing poorly.
• It's now evident we have no intention of shooting from distance, a bizarre development into the scoring end Davin stand. And while we seek 1 type of score, Galway (and any other top team) are going after every type of score. Morrissey scores from corner back in an embarrassing training game fashion on the 34th min with Glennon receiving a puc out and jogging to the 65. We were well on our way to our lowest hooks, blocks, tackle tally of the year (82)

Half time and you'd think these issues would be addressed - I thought Buckley and Roche would be on at the start of the second half, and that we'd sit deeper, but no Galway see how much of a sitting duck we are and push up and they take over quickly but shockingly easily.

• As mentioned earlier, Galway have some excellent periods of play but their purple patch is only a few minutes when you watch it back, we are responding with a malfunction even when they go from purple patch to a flatter few minutes
• Galway respond to the Fitzgibbon red with 4 wides in a row
• Unlike last year we get loads of opportunities to get back into it (from what is on re-watch an ok Galway performance) but we can't take them - we don't want to shoot a score. That gaelic statsman graphic of our 11 (yes 11) shots and where on the pitch they come from vs Galways 25 sums it up. Our usual hot spot from a shooting perspective is the 12 position... this was a dead zone for shooting for us all day.

View attachment 51732
A few kept battling to the end (SOD), others battled but headlessly (Barrett), others not really anywhere to be seen.

Not dissimilar to last year, as the year progressed we fell back to what we knew - picking the same players, and playing the same way. Ben was doing great stuff early doors - an incredibly tough pre-season, making calls on some lads, new faces during the league. But the Limerick RR game saw a switch from zonal to man on man in the half back line to turn things around & 3 up top (it works v Limerick) and then a couple of weeks later we see the 3 inside against waterford - those couple of weeks we were just continuing on what we always did. Collins selection for that Offaly league game after Paidi sul did so well in Nolan park, Connolly's selection from the get-go... so many opportunities to change the dial and bit by bit nothing changed. We couldn't even keep Buckley playing at all-star form on the field.

The 3 up with Alan Walsh really fails on work-rate. Connolly was the furthest from goal and he doesn't make effective tackles or turnovers. If you still expect Rob to sit, and TOC to cover Rob then you're kinda accepting the opposition will find space and free and tap over scores and we think we'll score more. Tackle counts drop.

We are assessing players on technical and physical attributes (we've the best players in the county in the squad you'll hear from most) but clearly now we don't have the best players in the county on the team as there are 2 other attributes - tactical and psychological, and we've a rake of lads not at the races on those areas. Last Saturday a couple of lads were making unforced errors they hadn't made all year... why then and there and not in other high pressure games over the last 2 years? Last year I thought mgmt decisions - tactical and personnel - was the main problem; this year mgmt were also at fault in those areas (maybe worse this time?) but it's hard to deny now that the common denominator is a cluster of experienced hurlers, some of the best in the country we think that can't correct course in croke park. And of course the critique is full of absolute horseshit (some dopes calling the Munster final a second half collapse) but we are now the England football team and apparently you can now throw any sort of shite the way of the cork team and it's fair. Joshua Ryan leapfrogs SOD into an all-star team - yep that makes sense.

There's a parallel universe where this year was 3 in a row, and ROF is a cult hero for his 1-1 in the '24 final that got the ball rolling. It's a fucking crock of shit and no point in calling it anything else but we keep going, we have the ingredients to fix it and get back to the top - hope we can be a bit more radical, ruthless, more honest and harder working when it really matters.

superb post and deserves no response, just needs to be left there as it is

 

[red&blue]

White collar boxing, let the lads puck the heads off each other

they will be doing that in 2 weeks time

 

[TonyCork80]

Tony, this isnt a workplace, this is the Cork Senior Hurling Team, I dont know what experience you have in a hurling dressing room but it thrives on 3 things, trust, honesty and standards, if theres an underlying issue then you need to solve that asap because if its left to fester it will spread, holding hands and singing kumbula wont fix this

And its not about fellas being able to speak well in the meeting, that’s irrelevant, its about fellas listening to their team mates and holding their hands up if they are being called out correctly, and again if they cant accept what is being said and fixing it Ben has a problem which needs fixing

Trust is about being honest and knowing what you say will not be repeated outside the bubble. If like you say things do get out of the meeting then Ben has a problem which needs fixing

Do you seriously think i want these lads to have that meeting this week? That would be ridiculous, the players are back with their clubs and will stay there until they are finished

Spot on but again its not an AA meeting thats needed and if you cant see that i cant help that

Again ask Limerick about honesty meetings, if Sean Finn has an issue with Diarmuid Byrnes not defending properly he will tell him and they will find a way to fix it. Thats fcukin leadership

They hit below par, an all ireland final loss would have been par, its irrelevant anyway because our team are at the level where winning the all ireland is the only successful year

So what, all that should matter is what happens within the group, the punter excuse is just that, an excuse

At last, you got there

Some fellas love a good meeting, don't get me wrong, and more luck to them, but half the group at any meeting I've ever been at in any context are rolling their eyes wanting to be somewhere else. I'm not as familiar with limericks internal processes as you are but I'd suspect it helps that Byrnes and Finn are two of the greatest hurlers of the last 25 years, meetings or no meetings.

My own experience of these things is that more often than not the fellas doing the most talking would quite often be better off spending their time working on their touch, catching and striking which co-incidentally were all fucking cat for Cork on the weekend.

The context here is a poster asking if they'd be meeting to debrief as a group in the coming weeks. I doubt if they would and they shouldn't. As a matter of course they'll probably have players meetings next year, but that will be a different group of people.