Cork blow Offaly away to dispel any worries about how the missing, injured players would affect the performance

There may have been some Cork nerves heading up to Thurles on Sunday for the All-Ireland hurling quarter-final between Cork and Offaly, but they were all gone within quarter of an hour as Cork pulled away easily to ensure they reached the last four once more.

Given Cork were missing Tim O’Mahony, Tommy O’Connell, Cormac O’Brien, Daire O’Leary and Declan Dalton there was a worry about how they would go, and especially so given that the first choice midfield was absent, but there was no need to worry as Cork put this one to bed early.

Cork were goal hungry in Thurles with them having netted four by the 28th minute to kill any potential Offaly resistance.

The move to start Alan Walsh was inspired, as the Kanturk man had too much aerial threat for the Offaly full back line and he had two goals in the bag as early as the 15th minute.

Brian Hayes and Shane Barrett got the other early goals and the Barr’s man grabbed another before half time after being brilliantly set up by Walsh.

It was inevitable that the game died away in the second half, with tactics going out the window with the game already decided. 

This meant that Cork stopped hitting ball into the full forward line inside, and indeed Hayes was replaced shortly after bagging his hat-trick early in the second half.

Cork will be under no illusions that Galway will be a very different proposition in the semi-final. Offaly were naïve in the manner in which they left themselves open all over the pitch. 

There was room for the full forward line to exploit inside, while Shane Barrett and Diarmuid Healy were able to find pockets of space easily in the half forward line as well, as they ran the show in the opening half.

Galway will not be as accommodating in the semi-final in a fortnight’s time, as illustrated in their comfortable Leinster final victory over Dublin. 

In that game they knew that the Dubs were going to go direct to their danger man John Hetherton, but they were ready for it. 

They packed their defence, compressing the room and space that Dublin needed to hurt them on the scoreboard, and when they invariably turned them over they had the athleticism, pace and hurling to pick them off at their ease, as they had about two-thirds of the Croke Park pitch to exploit.

From a Cork perspective it would not have gone unnoticed that the approach was similar to Tipperary’s set-up in last year’s All-Ireland final, so they will certainly know what to expect, and they will have had almost twelve months to come up with a way of combatting it.

That’s for another day though - ultimately Offaly should have attempted a similar approach. 

Instead, they resembled Dublin in last year’s All-Ireland semi-final, as they too left far too much room for Cork and the Rebels scored 7-26 that day.

Nobody will be getting carried away and no doubt Ben O’Connor and his managerial team will be focusing on some of the negatives, such as the two goals conceded in the second half and the sloppy wides late on.

It was also noticeable that Dan Bourke got joy when running at the Cork defence in space in the second half, and you could imagine the likes of Conor Whelan and Tom Monaghan relishing such room in Croke Park.

Given the ease of the victory it was difficult to gauge how well the new midfield pairing of Brian Roche and Darragh Fitzgibbon went. 

They got on a lot of ball and landed two points each, but there will be harder tests. 

In his post-match interview Ben O’Connor did not seem too enthusiastic about the possibility of either Tommy O’Connell and Tim O’Mahony being available in thirteen days, so Roche and Fitzgibbon are likely to get the nod again.

On Saturday the Cork minor footballers were in action in Parnell Park in the All-Ireland semi-final against Derry. 

Expectations were high given the manner in which they won the Munster championship and then dismantled Meath in the quarter-final, and they had to show real character after going behind in the early stages of the second half.

For a few minutes at the start of the second half Derry got on top of Cork with the Rebels not able to win their own kickouts against the breeze, but impressive goalkeeper Rory Twohig figured out the conundrum and once Cork got out they cut loose, and especially so when the bench was utilised, with Alex O’Herlihy and Kevin O’Donovan looking lively, as Cork ended up being fully deserving of their place in the All-Ireland final for the first time since 2019, as they pulled away to win by eleven by the final whistle.