Old-school goal threat means Cork hurlers pose new problems

AT the time, the move looked to be going nowhere, especially when Darragh Fitzgibbon was hemmed in near the corner-flag with four Tipperary players within a 10-metre radius of the Charleville man.

Yet Fitzgibbon turned back out the field before threading a short cross-field pass through the cover to Tim O’Mahony. Shane Kingston timed his third-man run perfectly, ghosting through and past five Tipp players to take the offload from O’Mahony.

Kingston still had work to do, especially when O’Mahony’s pass didn’t go to hand, and particularly when the Tipp cover were scrambling back.

By that stage though, Brian Hayes had cut in across the back of the Tipp cover from the corner where Fitzgibbon began the move and he was standing in just enough space on the edge of the square for Kingston to get off the pass before he was hunted down. As soon as Hayes flicked the ball into the net, the roof nearly blew off Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

The construction of the score was all the more impressive again considering that it was started as well as finished by Hayes, who won the initial ball before offloading it to Fitzgibbon.

From the time Hayes secured that initial possession until he flicked the ball home, the sliotar went through four pairs of Cork hands in a tight space packed with Tipp defenders in just 15 seconds.

When John ‘Bubbles’ O’Dwyer, the former Tipp forward, was interviewed afterwards, he said that the goal reminded him of Tipperary in their goalscoring prime.

Cork have always had that ability to spin the ball around but their goalscoring potential has always been higher again with a level of pace and speed that no other team in the country possesses.

Cork haven’t always delivered on that goalscoring promise but they emphatically did against Tipperary when raising four green flags. That number could have been even higher as Cork could have had two goals in the opening three minutes through Patrick Horgan and Brian Roche.

Cork’s four goals was the first time they had actually breached the three-goal barrier in a championship match since they routed Laois with ten goals in the 2011. However, in the intervening 12 seasons, Cork had only scored three goals on six more occasions, never surpassing four in that time. And that had only happened once in the Munster championship - in last year’s match against Tipperary when Cork hit 3-30 against a Tipp side on its knees.

The last time Cork hit four goals in a Munster championship match was the 2004 quarter-final against Kerry, in a 19-point rout, when Joe Deane, Brian Corcoran, Ben O’Connor and John Gardiner raised the green flags.

OUTLIER

Goals are no longer as common in the modern game, which made the Cork-Tipp match such an outlier, especially in Munster. On the other hand, the opening two rounds of this Munster campaign have already proven to be an outlier with Tipp and Cork having already breached the four goal-barrier.

In the last 15 seasons prior to this year (2008-2022), there had only been 19 occasions when a team scored three goals or more. However, that three-goal barrier had been breached just five times, with only Tipperary managing to do so on those five occasions.

Tipp’s opening day-goal blitz against Clare was the first time a team had scored more than three goals in a Munster championship match since Tipp hit Waterford for five in the 2016 Munster final.

Tipp have made their name for scoring goals over the last decade. 

Kilkenny were a goalscoring machine in their pomp under Brian Cody, but there was a time when Cork carried that threat more than any other team in the country.

When they won the 1990 All-Ireland, Cork scored 18 goals in five games, with John Fitzgibbon, Kevin Hennessy and Mark Foley accounting for 15 of them.

As the game changed, it was impossible to sustain those numbers. When Cork won their next All-Ireland in 1999, they only scored one goal in four games. If you remove those four goals against Kerry in 2004, Cork only managed 12 goals in ten matches during their 2004-‘05 double-winning seasons.

There has long been a sense that if Cork are to win an All-Ireland that they will need to score goals. And that potential to do so has always been there.

On Cork’s best day over the last decade, the 2021 All-Ireland semi-final against Kilkenny, Cork only scored one goal but they could have had at least five only for a goalkeeping display for the ages from Eoin Murphy.

Cork could have also had four goals in last year’s All-Ireland quarter-final against Galway but poor execution, combined with some decent goalkeeping from Éanna Murphy saw Cork’s goal tally limited to just one that afternoon.

Cork only created one goalscoring chance against Waterford in their opening game, but few teams in the All-Ireland championship have as many championship goalscorers as Cork now possess.

Against Tipp, Cork had 11 players - Fitzgibbon, Kingston, Hayes, O’Mahony, Horgan, Deccie Dalton, Shane Barrett, Seamus Harnedy, Luke Meade, Robbie O’Flynn and Conor Lehane – who have now scored goals in the championship. That number could have been 12 as Brian Roche had shots saved against Tipp and Waterford.

It rarely happens but when a team scores four goals in a Munster championship match, it’s normally Tipp who do so. It will be hard for Cork to repeat that trick, but if they can keep raising green flags, they will go a long way in this championship.