Cork v Tyrone: Red Hand on red alert and will look to neuter Rebel goal threat
Conor Corbett watches as his point attempt goes wide under pressure from Brendan McCole of Donegal. Picture: INPHO/Nick Elliott
DONEGAL may have been surprised by Cork a fortnight ago in the All-Ireland group stage encounter at Páirc Uí Rinn, but you imagine there is little chance of Tyrone falling into the same trap at Tullamore on Saturday.
You can understand why Donegal underestimated the challenge of Cork given how easily Jimmy McGuinness’ side had it up in Ballybofey in the league in late January, when winning by 1-20 to 2-6, but John Cleary’s side were a very different animal on home soil. However, Tyrone are well forewarned now, and there should be no accusations of Ulster complacency this time around.
Cork’s win over Donegal was huge – one of their biggest wins of the past decade, but the existence of Clare as the whipping boys of Group 3 means that if Cork fail to back up that win with another Ulster scalp on Saturday then they might slip as low as third by the final whistle.
Cork played Clare in the opening round in Ennis, and while they won by two points that was always likely to be Clare’s best performance of the group stage. They followed that loss with a 14-point drubbing up in Omagh and no one really expects them to fair much better in Castlebar against Donegal this Saturday.
This does make the equation a simple one though – to win the group Cork must win or draw.
Cork scored the last two points, through Steven Sherlock and Colm O’Callaghan, to beat Donegal, after the Ulster champions had come from five down after 46 minutes to level it, but it was the three goals that put Cork in a position to win the game.
There is an ‘accusation’ that this Cork team do not score enough points and are overly reliant on raising green flags. There may be a modicum of truth to this considering Cork only scored 12 points against Kerry, 13 versus Clare and just nine against Donegal.
You would expect that those numbers would have to rise up towards the mid-teens, and beyond, if Cork are going to move into the contenders category.
Tyrone are being written off by many now, but that definitely seems a tad premature, considering that we are talking about the All-Ireland champions from just three years ago.
This year in the league they recorded wins over Roscommon, Mayo and Monaghan to preserve their Division 1 status, while in the championship they saw off Cavan before succumbing to Donegal by two points.
It was probably unfortunate for them that their next game turned out to be away to Donegal, and they were well beaten this time, by 0-21 to 0-14, but perhaps too much has been made of that one result in terms of writing them off. After all, Cork know themselves how difficult it is to go to Ballybofey, as they lost by eleven points there in the league.
Ultimately, that result should be taken with the pinch of salt that it deserves. Tyrone have dusted themselves off and have responded brilliantly with that 3-15 to 0-10 rout of Clare, although it must be noted that Tyrone slotted a late unanswered 1-4 after Clare had been reduced to 14.
Tyrone have some quality attackers in the shape of the Canavan brothers, Darragh and Ruairi, Mattie Donnelly and Darren McCurry, while they can get scores from all over the pitch, as demonstrated the last day when corner-back Niall Devlin registered an incredible 2-2.
Despite being the only 100% team in the group Cork go into Saturday’s encounter as underdogs in the eyes of the bookmakers.
Perhaps the trust has not been built up enough in this side yet. Maybe there is a view that there is an over-reliance on Cork scoring goals to win games. It is up to John Cleary’s side now to drive on and change that narrative.
A win on Saturday up in Offaly would be a good starting point.
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