Cork Hurlers - Part 2

[Crankycorner]

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

Tactically we were a well beaten docket today, picking the team we did today was a bad signal to our players. 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

And 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 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 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

I was sceptical but I’m in full agreement with you R&B re Coleman. Midfield has to be his position.

 

[BBAWS.]

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.

He looked game from where I was sitting. Himself and AC in FF gives us options and would make Waterford think.

We will have to agree to disagree.

 

[JimmyBarrySmurph]

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. 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

And 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 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 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

Excellent feedback r&b & some proper super analysis.
Nothing much else you could do I know but your team is the same auld same auld though. Depressing really.

 

[T. Leaf]

And iswell why isn’t Robbie cotter on the best player in the senior championship last year cabt even make the 24 I’m sick to death of this shit with cork I think I’ll start supporting either limerick or tipp

Off ye go then. No one here is going to hold you back.

 

[CORK1990]

Lets get real do we have any chance against Clare after that very disappointing display today ....

 

[TheOutdoorThreadmill]

Off ye go then. No one here is going to hold you back.

Well said, nice to see all the wums and trolls out to play tonight

 

[Corkfan82]

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

Spot on, bring Meade on instead on Roche or TOM is very questionable. Can P Ryan not see we need dogs midfield.

 

[junior footballer]

Usually after one of these typical cork losses someone would put up that no one is as disappointed as the players but we seem to have moved beyond that one these days

 

[Crankycorner]

Another poster a few pages back asked if we should go back to our running game. I think we absolutely have to. It’s our strongest style of play. We were far too direct at times today especially in the first half when we pucked ball after ball down on top of the spare man. Playing a sweeper outselves didn’t seem to suit us.

 

[Coach and Six]

I actually think now, this evening, is not the time to go naming and criticizing individual players. No one had a terribly off day really. It was a collective disaster both on the field and on the line.
In the last 12 months I haven’t seen a single post on here that would provide any short term solution to Corks ongoing demise in hurling. Instead I see posts about player A (who we know isn’t good enough anymore) being dropped and pick player B (who was never good ever enough for this standard) it’s depressing.

Good post. A lot of irrational crankiness around but the frustration is deep among fans (it's still April and it the season is already hanging on a knife edge). We have some superb hurlers, we have promising underage success and plenty of expertise in the county, so fellas coming on here axe swinging left, right and centre, struggle for credibility.

Let's focus on what we can change now to salvage the season. Im sick of them starting the old guard up front when they clearly look like they are not the answer. They've been unbelievable servants for Cork (earning no wages) so let's be kind but PR will lose credibility if he persists banging our heads off the wall.

That said nobody is really chomping at the bit to overtake them either so put yourself in PRs shoes. There are difficult decisions to be made but he has to twist now and it should be easier to do it because we lost to the worst ranked team. Had this happened against one of the other three he might be forgiven for putting more or less the same team out but he has to make changes now or his credibility is shot. That starting 15 isn't going to be at Clare, Tipp or Limerick.

Settling for 3rd….
Maybe he is a realist? When our manager is saying this to the media it shows where we really are in Cork hurling doesn’t it.

In fairness, I read that as just Ryan giving other teams respect and acknowledging the challenge with both the AI champions and League champions in the group.