Sars attitude will be never mind the quality of the game, they came to win and they did that in style

Sarsfields will not have cared too much as they headed back towards Glanmire with the Sean Óg Murphy Cup in tow, but with the RTÉ cameras in situ the opportunity to showcase Cork hurling was missed on Sunday as Sars won a disappointing final pulling up.

Considering that both semi-finals had been rip-roaring, drama-filled affairs it was a let down to see the showpiece being a bit of a damp squib on Leeside with poor striking from both sides being a feature.

Sars made hard work of it, considering Midleton’s injury issues, but ultimately it was the superior pace from midfield up that was the difference, with Cian Darcy, Killian Murphy, Colm McCarthy and Jack O’Connor stretching the Midleton defenders sinews, and it was O’Connor who eventually managed to cut loose with a number of crucial scores from play in the second half that put them out of sight.

There was simply no getting away from the absences through injury of the key Magpies Eoin Moloney and Conor Lehane. 

Alas we will never know how the game might have transpired had they been fit and healthy.

Moloney was playing the best hurling of his life in this campaign when he suffered a terrible Achilles injury in the semi-final win over Blackrock.

Conor Lehane suffered a similar cruel injury in that match and his absence requires little explanation. 

He is the Midleton talisman and without him they would not have won their last two county titles. 

He scored 2-10 of their 2-15 total in the two-point win over Sars in 2013, and he wasn’t far off that total in 2021 when he got 0-13 when they beat the Glen in that year’s decider.

Evan McGrath’s bizarre goal in the 11th minute gave Midleton hope. 

It was really sloppy stuff from Sars to go from being in possession and in control to the young Midleton midfielder clipping it into an empty net in a matter of seconds.

However, James Sweeney scored a cracking goal after 17 minutes after a superb piercing run and offload from Cian Darcy, and there was no looking back for Sars.

It was not until the clock said 18.52 until Cormac Beausang finally registered Midleton’s first white flag. 

Lehane was certainly being missed.

Barry O’Flynn was making his presence felt on his county final debut, with his slick control and direct running proving problematic for Midleton. One suspects it will not be his last little All-Ireland.

Sars’ poor shooting in the first half meant Midleton remained in touching distance despite their issues at the other end, although when Colm McCarthy slotted a simple free after O’Flynn had been fouled once more, the gap was five and it was already difficult to see how the Magpies were going to pull it out of the fire.

The Midleton effort was certainly not found wanting from a physical perspective, as they hit every blue jersey that moved, and they ended up falling foul of the referee Colm Lyons on more than one occasion, with Colm McCarthy landing six frees in the opening half, but in the first half they just were not able to fill the Lehane shaped hole.

When Midleton did manage to get themselves into good positions they seemed overanxious, which was possibly a consequence of the pressure they were under to get scores without their principal attacker.

Sars had double the amount of scoring attempts (30) in the opening half hour than Midleton had (15), which shows where Midleton were struggling. 

Sars missed 20 of those chances whereas Midleton missed 11 of theirs, which tells you all you need to know about the standard of hurling in the first half.

Given those stats Sars will have felt that they should have been more than 1-9 to 1-3 up at half time.

The second half saw a continuation of the trend of the first with both sides guilty of poor shooting and you always felt that Sars had their opponents at arm’s length.

Brion Saunderson’s 53rd minute monster free from distance gave Midleton brief hope, but in this game a four point lead felt bigger than what it should have in a game of hurling. 

Sweeney’s second goal at the death was the icing on the cake and finally put an end to Midleton’s slim hopes.

Ciarmhac Smyth, Tommy O’Connell and Mikey Finn gave it their all for Midleton, but unfortunately for them it always looked like they were fighting on a losing cause.