I know it’s only college GAA, but you could recognise a Cork team anywhere by their kick-out strategy. You’ve seen the same pattern in other games as well. They did well to reach the final in spite of it, but it looked like they had done the least amount of work on kick-outs of any of the teams they faced.
On one side, UL were creating space for their players to run onto the ball and win kickouts uncontested time after time. On the other, UCC were consistently hitting high, 50–50 kick-outs into areas where UL actually had the numerical advantage.
I don’t know if it’s Cork arrogance or what, but I’m not sure how we can be so tactically poor on kick-outs for such a long time. It really shouldn’t be that complicated to fix. The team needs to recognise the shape the opposition are using and react accordingly — for example, if they’re isolating players in space, go zonal; if they’re overloading the wings, mix up zonal and man-to-man.
It’s also baffling that no Cork club, college or county teams seems to have five or six reliable, go-to kick-out options like other counties do.
