Pat Ryan tends to try to find the holes in things when he talks about his Cork team. It’s a defence mechanism, maybe. A way of keeping the great Cork glass elevator from spinning off into the sky. It’s not the easiest trick to pull off when your team has won an All-Ireland semi-final by 20 points. He gave it a go, all the same.
“We’re targeting goals all the time. We’re targeting fast starts all the time. That’s the goal of it. I think the lads were really clinical today. We left a few behind us and an awful lot of scores behind us from points. But that’s me being a bit critical, I suppose. Maybe over-critical.”
The last time Cork played in Croke Park, they lost the All-Ireland final by a point in extra-time. As if the torture of a result like that isn’t bad enough, the next-day reality is almost as bad. You slide all the way back down to the bottom of the board. You go from being so close to the big prize you can almost touch it to being as far away from it as everybody else.
They are the first Cork team to lose an All-Ireland final and make it back to the following year’s decider since 2003/04. It’s never a given.
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“We came out of here 51-and-a-half weeks ago and for us to get back here to a final shows the strength of character and commitment to the jersey that the lads have,” Ryan said. “We knuckled down, we got back, we refreshed the panel a bit more. We looked at the areas we didn’t do well as a management. We spoke to the players about that. We really went after performances in the league and tried to make that as best we could.
“A small little thing, the weather was good. If you’re not really involved in teams, you might not notice it and think the weather is always the same. But the weather has been great and the lads have really enjoyed coming to Páirc Uí Rinn and Páirc Uí Chaoimh and the year sort of flew.”
They came here with murderous intent. Seven goals in an All-Ireland semi-final hasn’t been done since 1986. Cork did it that time too, although it only washed out in a five-point win over Antrim back then. That this was a 20-pointer was down to the sheer intent and accuracy of Ryan’s team.
“The accuracy was very good. I thought after the first two or three goals we probably pushed it a bit too much. We should have been building the score. We left three or four points behind us that would have left the score tipping away and just kept making it difficult for Dublin. We gave away two soft goals then, which we were disappointed with. We came in at half-time and the lads were really focused. I thought maybe our work-rate was a bit down as well.
“But they’re areas we’ll go after. The commitment the lads have put in to get back to a final has been immense. We’re back where we were last year and the ambition is to go one better. But we know the opposition will be really, really good as well.”
For Niall Ó Ceallacháin, it was a chastening experience. His team were rinsed, even though they put up 2-21, a score they would have presumed could be competitive. To his credit, the Dublin manager didn’t just throw up his hands and say there was nothing they could have done about it. But he did concede they were playing against the best team they’ve faced.
“By a long way,” he said. “And I don’t want to do Cork a disservice by hyping them up. Every game is different. But what I will say is that is by far the best performance over 75 minutes that I’ve seen this year by a long way.
“They are going to take some beating, I would say. That’s as good a team and performance from a sharpness perspective that I’ve seen in a long, long time. Their goals, we couldn’t live with. Their pace and power inside. They were breaking the line, they had the composure and presence of mind in tight scenarios to be really aware of who was outside and just popped the ball outside. They did that extremely well.”
Could Dublin have changed anything? Dropped a man back to protect the full-back line, maybe?
“I think it’s a fair question. I think it’s a fair question when you concede seven goals. Like I’ll tell you straight out, we intentionally didn’t. Straight up, we intentionally didn’t and I’ve been proven wrong now, so I can be fairly criticised. But the way we see it is there’s just no point in a zonal back six against a team like Cork. You won’t concede seven goals, so you won’t see a scenario like that. But you will lose the game. You will lose the game.
“So is it risky setting up like that? It absolutely is. Should I be criticised today? Absolutely. It didn’t work. They were very sharp and they were excellent. But what I would say is with the alternative you won’t lose by 20 points like what we lost there. But you will lose the game.”
