Odd game. V slippery surface, and for a long time neither team seemed to settle down. The atmosphere was a bit flat as well, certainly until the Waterford goal. To that point Waterford were the better team imo - they had more possession, much of which they squandered, and Cork were haunted to be ahead at HT thanks to a fluke goal. The FF line couldn't get their hands on any ball, and TBF a large part of the reason for that was the passes forward were being hit too hard and skidding on the greasy surface. Deane was the only forward to offer any threat, and even he was guilty of taking too much out of the ball at times.
The fifteen minutes after Waterford's goal couldn't have been more different. Cork destroyed the Waterford puck out, especially on breaking ball, passes inside were sticking, Ring and Coughlan both made huge impacts off the bench, Brosnan dominated at 6, and Deane wasn't trying to force the play and picked off point after point.
Waterford seemed to me like a good team who had a bad night. They were well set up and frustrated Cork for large parts of the game, but their error count must have been v high - Cork got a number of scores from v soft turn-overs, simple things that Waterford would unlikely to be caught by in another game.
So, a real mix in terms of the performance. I prefer to look on the bright side - Cork were well below their best, but when they were in trouble they kicked up a gear, with substitutions and switches making a big difference (credit to the management as well). Special mention to Walsh from Carrigtwohill, all action in the middle of the field and my man of the match.
