Cork can forget about Limerick for now, they've a lot to work on before facing Offaly

With 29 and a half minutes played of the Munster Hurling final, Rob Downey reached above the outstretched paw of Gearoid Hegarty and plucked the sliotar from his grasp.

He then drove out with the ball, sidestepped another Limerick player and off his left side launched it over the bar from the halfway line.

It was an inspirational score, putting Cork 1-11 to 1-5 ahead, and the huge Cork crowd reacted accordingly. 

Six points up, with the wind. Cork were looking good and a late surge before the break would have put the hosts in a very strong position.

Instead, it was Limerick who got that kick, scoring the last four points of the half, through two frees from Aidan O’Connor and a point apiece from Cathal O’Neill and Shane O’Brien. It meant Cork were only up by two, despite having hurled with the strong breeze. 

You sensed at the time that this would end up being a costly period and it proved to be just that.

The game would go down to the wire, ending in controversial circumstances with the referee inevitably becoming a central figure by the manner in which he blew up as Cork worked a chance to equalise. The key metric to take from this game is that the above-mentioned Downey point ended up being Cork’s last point from play in the entire game, as Cork struggled to get their shots off in the second half.

They did obviously bag a Brian Hayes goal in the 38th minute, but they were completely reliant on the hurley of Alan Connolly from placed balls in the second half, with the Blackrock forward arrowing over six in the second period.

The strength of the wind was a huge reason why Cork struggled to score from play in the second half but Limerick were able to rifle over five in the opening half.

One of the major reasons why Cork struggled to exert themselves from play was because they struggled so much to retain their own puck-outs. They ended the first half having won eight out of 15 of their restarts, with at least three of Patrick Collins' long puck-outs ending up going straight over the left-hand sideline.

By the final whistle, Cork had a poor 48% success rate on their own puck-outs. To compare, Limerick won 70% of their puck-outs. 

If Cork could get these stats to parity or close, then they would fancy beating Limerick any day. 

A lot of work is required here for the huge challenges that lie ahead.

The free count ended up being 18 to 14 in Limerick’s favour, and in general, Cork players had to take considerably more punishment to win frees, whereas Limerick were given a lot of soft ones, with minimal contact, which really annoyed the Cork crowd.

Despite Cork’s difficulties in winning possession high up the pitch the fact that Nicky Quaid was deservedly awarded the Man of the Match tells a story in itself. 

The veteran goalkeeper was instrumental in Limerick’s excellent restart stats but he also made two crucial saves to keep Limerick in the game when they were struggling to reel in the Rebels.

The first of these came in the 25th minute when he produced a full-length diving save to his right to deflect a Diarmuid Healy wrasper out for a 65, and in the 53rd minute, he dived low to his left to deny Mark Coleman a second goal. Without these interventions, it is unlikely that Limerick would have come out on top.

PUZZLING

One of the stranger aspects of the Munster final was Cork’s poor use of their substitutes. 

The Cork bench would have been considered to have had more potential impact than Limerick’s yet the Cork management only sprung three players, with the attacking switches Seamus Harnedy and Hugh O’Connor coming on too late to really impact the game. 

It was surprising that the likes of Shane Kingston, Padraig Power and Alan Walsh were not called upon.

Given what we witnessed in Croke Park on Saturday evening, it is clear that Cork now have the more difficult route to reach the All-Ireland final. If Cork get past Offaly in the quarter-final, they will have a seriously tough task against Leinster champions Galway in the last four.

Clare and Dublin were both extremely poor in their last outings, so it is hard to make a case for either of them troubling Limerick right now.