Cork hurlers should focus on championship over league with free-taking delays becoming an issue

After three games for the Cork hurlers in the league, and three wins, we can start to see the semblance of the championship team taking shape in front of our eyes.

It doesn't look at this stage that Patrick Collins is going to be challenged in goal, while Dáire O’Leary is looking like the front-runner at full-back given he has impressed to date.

All-Star Sean O’Donoghue is nailed on for a starting role. Niall O’Leary will take some shifting from the other corner though Ger Millerick certainly put his hand up with an impressive display on Saturday night, with and without the ball.

Ciaran Joyce also won an All-Star last year and the Castlemartyr man has yet to feature in the league. Given how the half-back line of Eoin Downey, Rob Downey and Mark Coleman went against Tipp, it will be hard to break in. 

Someone is going to be disappointed to not get handed a start against the Premier come championship, but that in itself has to be a positive for Ben O’Connor.

It is starting to look like captain Darragh Fitzgibbon is going to be utilised in a wing-forward role, which means there is a position up for grabs in midfield alongside Tim O’Mahony. Going on the last two games, Tommy O’Connell is favourite, but Brian O’Sullivan, Micheál Mullins and Ethan Twomey all remain live options.

William Buckley looks nailed on for a roving corner-forward role, which means Cork are likely to go with two up top. 

Brian Hayes is a certainty and the fact that Alan Connolly has been handed the free-taking duties over Declan Dalton would suggest he is likely to be the other starter.

Dalton and Ben Cunningham, which is recovering from injury, are probably the two best free-takers on the panel at present, but O’Connor is clearly planning for scenarios where he has to look elsewhere.

Three wins in a row leave Cork in an extremely strong position, whether they want it or not, to qualify for the league final once more.

They will be expected to beat Offaly in their last game at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh, so one positive result against either Kilkenny or Limerick would probably be enough to garner one of the top two positions.

The final takes place on the first weekend of April. The likelihood is that if Cork did qualify for the decider that it would be against another Munster team, one from Limerick, Tipp or Waterford.

The Munster Championship kicks off on April 19, so Cork would have two weeks to prep for that game against Tipp in Thurles.

In truth, a league final would be a distraction that they could probably do without, especially if it's Liam Cahill’s side. 

Yet it is hard to imagine a Ben O’Connor-coached team doing anything other than trying to win every match and every title up for grabs.

DELAY

One of the big talking points from Saturday night was the booing of Premier forward Darragh McCarthy. 

It is not a good look and something that needs to end. At the same time, McCarthy’s free-taking style has probably brought to a head a conversation that needs to take place on the time being taken over placed balls.

This has been a problem in hurling for years, with players from every county taking too long to trot out to take frees, but McCarthy has taken it to a new level. Most free-takers will take the guts of 10 seconds to strike the sliotar once they are standing over it, but McCarthy usually takes over 30 seconds to go through his lengthy routine. 

If he takes on average 10 in every game, that is over 200 seconds he is spending taking frees more than your normal free-taker. 

We cannot be losing over three minutes in every game of hurling just because one player wishes to go through an elaborate routine.

A quick resolution to this would be to introduce a rule that once a free-taker is standing over the ball, the free must be taken within 15 seconds. No one needs more time than that.