Crunching the figures on the Cork hurlers' season

While it’s not as good as the book, Fever Pitch is nevertheless a nice view into fandom and why we put ourselves through what we do.

It is set in 1988-89, when Arsenal led the Football League Division 1 for much of the season only to seemingly throw it away before a miracle victory against Liverpool at Anfield. During that period where it seems as if Paul – played by Colin Firth – will have to wait at least another year for the Gunners to end their long wait for the title, he ruminates on the cyclical nature of sport.

“You lose a cup final in May, you’ve got the third round to look forward to in January,” he says, and it’s not mere gallows humour. The next year is always the best one.

Of course, for some of the Cork hurling panel, the ceaseless nature of the split-season means that you lose an All-Ireland final on a Sunday and you’re togging out for your club in the county championship on a Friday night. Already, those games are two days away, extra time in Croke Park was three days ago.

There will be enough of a winter to look at what Cork might do differently in 2025 and who will be added to the panel. Before turning our focus to county championship previews, though, one last look at the campaign just gone.

Cork scored more goals than anybody else, 17 in eight matches, with seven different players doing so. Of course Clare, who notched 15, were the only other side to have as many games while Cork’s tally was added to with four green flags against Offaly and the three games after that saw them find the net just once.

Patrick Horgan naturally led the scoring charts with 5-74, 1-57 of that from frees while he got four 65s and a penalty goal. Alan Connolly was the top scorer from open play with 4-13, while Darragh Fitzgibbon’s haul of 0-24 was the greatest tally of white flags from play. In total, Cork had 19 different point-scorers.

Cork had 21 starters across their eight matches but all of them started one or both of the opening two games in the Munster SHC. After the opening loss to Waterford, Pat Ryan and his selectors made six changes to the team and thereafter there was never more than one switch from game to game, usually enforced by injury.

Of the team that began against Clare in SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh at the end of Apil, 14 of them logged more than 400 minutes of championship action. The other player to do so was Mark Coleman, who started against Waterford and then got back in for the round-robin match against Limerick.

A total of 27 players featured at some stage in the championship. Goalkeeper Patrick Collins played every minute, closely followed by Patrick Horgan, an incredible feat for a 36-year-old.

The 15 players that began in Croke Park against Limerick and then Clare were obviously the 15 at the top of the minutes chart, but after the 15th-ranked Declan Dalton (406 minutes), the next was Ethan Twomey (191), who was one of the six brought in against Clare but suffered an injury against Tipperary that kept him out for two matches.

Such a fall-off shows how settled a team Cork had and that was a factor in them managing to reignite their season after leaving themselves chasing following the opening two matches. Equally, the management can’t be accused of simply avoiding change – when a team is going well, change without a good reason is always dangerous and the use of the subs at various times pointed to training performance being a factor in giving players a chance.

After a loss like Sunday, everything can be second-guessed but a one-point defeat after 90 minutes should not colour the view of everything that went before.

Cork championship minutes 2024: 

580 – Patrick Collins; 

572 – Patrick Horgan (5-74 1-57f, 0-4 65, 1-0 penalty); 

564 – Darragh Fitzgibbon (0-24); 

551 – Seán O’Donoghue; 

533 – Shane Barrett (2-18); 

522 – Alan Connolly (4-13); 

521 – Mark Coleman (0-5); 

500 – Niall O’Leary (0-2); 

488 – Tim O’Mahony (0-4); 

486 – Robert Downey (2-3); 

469 – Eoin Downey (0-1); 

438 – Ciarán Joyce (0-2); 

428 – Brian Hayes (2-14); 

427 – Séamus Harnedy (1-20); 

406 – Declan Dalton (0-21, 12f); 

191 – Ethan Twomey (0-1); 

133 – Luke Meade (0-2); 

132 – Damien Cahalane; 

128 – Shane Kingston (0-9), Conor Lehane (0-3); 

123 – Tommy O’Connell; 

118 – Ger Millerick; 

92 – Robbie O’Flynn (1-4); 

41 – Jack O’Connor; 

38 – Seán Twomey; 

13 – Brian Roche; 

8 – Pádraig Power.