Cork GAA talking points: Dream debut for Duds Healy, missed goal chances and footballers lack edge

A SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh triple-header confirmed much of what we already knew last Saturday.

The hurlers’ stock remains high, the women’s footballers are heading back to the top table, and the men are stuck in mid-table limbo. But the primary upside of league action is finding new gems ready to step up.

This weekend featured a series of those U20 graduates making their mark. 

Up in the Gaelic Grounds, Clare half-forwards Jack O’Neill and Seán Rynne got late call-ups and both tagged on three points. Indeed, the Hurling League’s top scorer, Tipperary teenager Darragh McCarthy, used his bye week to win a Fresher 1 Hurling title with a man-of-the-match performance and 12-point haul for UL against UCC. 

But the outstanding performance of the weekend came on Leeside from Diarmuid Healy. Having been blooded off the bench in Tipp, Duds' dream full debut hauled 1-5 from seven shot attempts.

It says much about Healy’s potential that it could’ve been even more. 

He was hooked by Mikey Carey for one early goal chance and could’ve gone for broke from another but opted to tap over. It won’t be all sunshine and gravy as he adapts to life at the top level but Healy showed Pat Ryan that he can contribute straight away in his rookie year.

He adds tremendous pace to a Cork attack founded on those strike runners. 

It’s hard enough for opponents to stop Darragh Fitzgibbon and Shane Barrett without having Healy raiding down the other flank. His aerial ability separates him from many contemporaries as he can be a puck-out target and hunt breaking ball.

For his first goal chance, he showed no little strength to hold up a charging David Blanchfield - no small man himself - and force the turnover. He smelled out the break for his goal and wasted no time picking his spot.

From the puck-out after Cork leaked their second goal, Healy came out of a ruck with the sliotar and tapped over the leveller.

He was the target for another puck-out when, despite losing his hurley, he showed tidy football skills with a kick pass that began the move for Declan Dalton’s goal chance. From the next puck-out, Eoin Downey picked him out on the run for a point that could’ve been more.

Into the second half, he swept up a Kilkenny puck-out to spark the move for Patrick Horgan’s sixth point. His three late points owed much to his awareness of space, that pace, and crisp striking.

WASTED

Across the forward line, converting goal chances remains a work in progress. Ryan spoke leaving "six or seven goals behind us" in Tipp and it was a similar story here.

Eoin Murphy saved from Brian Hayes and Dalton, while Healy, Horgan, and Shane Barrett were hooked when eyeing the net. Hayes saw a late flick trickle along rather than across the goalline.

That’s two consecutive games where Cork have created far more goal chances than their opponents but exited with just one green flag against two conceded.

That is an easier fix, at least, than a team not creating those openings at all.

It was the same for Limerick against Clare. Aaron Gillane could’ve had four goals and Shane O’Brien two. They finished none whereas the Banner took the only chance that came their way for a three-point win.

John Cleary’s footballers suffered similar issues when twice hitting the crossbar among five spurned goal chances. At the same time, they handed Roscommon two goals.

For the first, Ben O’Carroll had been stripped of possession inside the 21 when a failed Cork pick-up allowed him to regain the ball and feed Ciarán Lennon, who tumbled over for a penalty.

The Rossies added salt to the wound when Rory Maguire passed back towards goalkeeper Patrick Doyle, who isn’t permitted to receive the ball inside his own half under the new rules, and O’Carroll profited to tap into the net.

Cork missed the attacking finesse of captain Brian Hurley, cruciate-victim Conor Corbett, and opted-out Steven Sherlock while the defence continues to leak large totals.

Their discipline faltered to give up a handful of 50-metre advancements for not handing the ball back for a free or blocking a solo-and-go. Diarmuid Murtagh took two of those back outside the 40-metre scoring arc for successful two-pointers.

Those came in the first half before the game had escaped Cork’s grasp. Frustration had no right to infect their play at that juncture.

Having hoped to relaunch a promotion push, Cork must now watch their backs with only two points insulating them from the Division 3 trapdoor and the risk of Tailteann Cup football. Down hold the head-to-head tiebreaker on the Rebels should they catch up.

A pressure-cooker contest against Louth has become a familiar theme of recent seasons. It will be no different back at the Páirc on March 16.