Everything about it was staggering: the suffocating intensity, the twists, the spectacular scores and the crazy misses. Cork and Limerick were locked in a clench deep into a rapturous summer’s evening and neither of them knew how to let go. The longest night in the history of the Munster championship ended with a penalty shootout and a season set ablaze.
After being eviscerated by Limerick in the round-robin phase, Cork recovered everything they lost three weeks ago. All the revived doubts about their temperament and their stomach for the fight were dismissed. This group of Cork players couldn’t afford to fall over again. They stood up to everything Limerick could muster.
The cruelty of penalties is a modern phenomenon in the GAA. For an epic contest such as this to be decided by a capricious tiebreaker is a function of the condensed calendar and there will doubtless be another chorus of dissent. There should be.
In the event, Limerick missed three times and Alan Connolly’s winner was buried with characteristic panache. After nearly 100 minutes of escalating tension and exhaustion, that was the nominal difference: three Cork penalty takers held their nerve.
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The psychological capital for Cork is incalculable. After their late collapse in Ennis and their abject surrender in the Gaelic Grounds three weeks ago, the Rebels’ credentials as serious contenders were widely derided. This performance was the only credible answer.
In his post-match interview, Cork manager Pat Ryan referred to his team’s “fight” half a dozen times. That was the overwhelming difference between Saturday night and the round-robin game. The adjustments that Cork made in their match-ups and their structure were worthless without sustained aggression.
From the start, they stood in the middle of the ring and traded body blows. They flew into contests for ball on the ground, ravenous for turnovers. This was the fundamental stuff that Ryan has demanded for the last three years but had been so painfully absent three weeks ago.
With both teams going at each other like rutting stags, the referee was bound to be part of the story
The teams were level 17 times in all, but Cork never flinched. Their half-time lead was wiped out 11 minutes into the second half, but against the wind they reclaimed the lead five times in the following 20 minutes, rolling with the punches.
There is an obvious cost for Limerick. For the first time since their breakthrough season in 2018, they must navigate a quarter-final in a fortnight’s time. It is a tax that an ageing team would prefer not to pay. Manager John Kiely has never made any secret of the store he puts in the month-long break for provincial winners, but they must do without it now.
In normal time they managed just 28 shots from play when they would usually expect to register that many scores, or more. When Cork beat them in the round-robin game in Páirc Uí Chaoimh 13 months ago, they were the first team to have more shots than Limerick in the Kiely era. They did it again at Croke Park two months later.
Here, they exceeded Limerick’s total by eight shots in normal time. Limerick closed the gap on that metric in extra-time, but Cork still finished with more shots at the target. For Limerick, a team whose potency is built on volume, this was a consequential systems failure.
Primary possession had been a debilitating problem for Cork three weeks ago, but that core issue was addressed too. Between short and long puck-outs, Cork secured 53 per cent of their own ball and restricted Limerick to 55 per cent. Limerick managed to score just 1-8 from their restarts, which was exactly the same total as Cork. Parity in the air gave Cork a platform to compete.
Cian Lynch was hounded by the outstanding Ciarán Joyce and a posse of lieutenants. Diarmaid Byrnes was tormented by Séamus Harnedy, just as he was in the game 13 months ago. Eventually, the Limerick wing back was taken off. Darragh Fitzgibbon was the most influential player in the middle third.
Kyle Hayes was magnificent in the opening 20 minutes, but by half-time Shane Barrett had scored 1-3 from play on his watch. For the remainder of the evening, Hayes was just like everybody else, chasing a game that nobody could catch.
In a game like this, with both teams going at each other like rutting stags, the referee was bound to be part of the story. During the first half, both managers became increasingly wound up by Thomas Walsh’s refusal to penalise obvious fouls.
Limerick are usually sanguine about matches where the physical contact is unregulated and Cork clearly came to the Gaelic Grounds with combat on their minds. Walsh granted permission for illegal contact all over the field and both teams went for it.
In these situations, everyone loves the spectacle until they’re gasping for a free and there’s an unpenalised foul in front of the goal for an offence that had also gone unpenalised in the middle of the field.
When Walsh left the field with cramp in extra-time, his replacement James Owens elected to apply some of the rules and the character of the game changed. It turned out that there were laws in the jungle.
Limerick will feel like they blew it when they consider the chances missed at the end of normal time. They experienced the same feelings against Cork twice last year: thought they should have won but didn’t. For Limerick, there is no future in that.
