Christy O'Connor: Galway weren't afraid to rip up the script after last season, Cork must rebuild now

When Galway travelled to Cork 16 months ago for what was effectively a league semi-final, everything everybody expected to happen beforehand actually happened, almost by script – Cork tore Galway to shreds.

Having hit Clare for six goals in their previous meeting, Cork rammed four goals past Micheál Donoghue’s side. Cork led by 15 points at the outset of the fourth quarter. The final margin of victory was 12 points as Cork won pulling up.

At that time, Cork looked like a team primed to win an All-Ireland. And Galway appeared to be going nowhere.

Galway’s summer went up in flames after being taken apart by Kilkenny and Tipperary in the Leinster final and All-Ireland quarter-final. Cork crashed and burned in the second half of the All-Ireland final but they still went into this season as one of the favourites for the All-Ireland.

Galway weren’t even in that conversation. But they firmly are now. And combing through the embers of that league game in March 2025 provides a lot of evidence as to why.

Overhaul

Of the team that started in Páirc Uí Chaoimh that evening, only seven started last weekend’s All-Ireland semi-final. Something had to change. And it absolutely did.

Micheál Donoghue and his management absolutely tore up the script, both in terms of personnel and playing style. There were 10 changes from the side which started the 2025 Leinster final to the team which beat Dublin in this year’s provincial final.

Galway also came back with a different style, which was constructed around more of a defensive/counter-attacking game. And Donoghue fitted the team out with the athleticism and qualities to execute that style.

Throughout last year’s championship, Galway carried a squad of roughly 45 players. Seventeen never made the championship 26. They weren’t ready back then. But they are this year.

Donoghue and his management were steadily building in the background but nobody would have still even imagined for a second on that evening in March 2025 that it would be possible for Galway to dismantle Cork in Croke Park 16 months later. It was because Galway realised the need for radical change before tearing up the script.

And now, Cork are at a similar juncture. 

For all the talk all season about this being a new way under a new management, Cork were still trying to win an All-Ireland with the same group of players that had blown up in last year’s final.

The only way those hard questions were ever going to be really answered was in the second half of an All-Ireland final. As it happened, those questions were answered in the last 35 minutes of a semi-final.

This group of players have delivered some of the most incredible performances of any team in the last few years. No side has a better record against Limerick – the brand leaders – than Cork, who have proven their mental and physical fortitude in the some of the biggest games against John Kiely’s side.

Cork were unlucky to lose the 2024 All-Ireland final but the biggest games in Croke Park have now become a huge issue for this group. And particularly when they are presented with a different tactical challenge and are forced to problem-solve on the hoof, as they were against Tipp last July, and against Galway last Saturday.

Of course, Cork practise for different scenarios. In an interview in the Irish Times last November, Donal O’Rourke – Cork coach under Pat Ryan – spoke to Denis Walsh about how Tipp’s deployment of a sweeper in last year’s All-Ireland final had apparently spooked Cork. 

"That wasn’t the case,” said O’Rourke. “We had done so much work on sweepers."

Cork had surely prepared for how Galway set up too last weekend but any tactical or technical failure is still a reflection of a group’s mindset. 

And when the players were presented with another puzzle, they couldn’t work their way around it.

The same issues remained as Cork were ensnared in the same trap, trying to work their way out of it the same way that had failed before. That was particularly evident in how Galway hammered Cork in the second half off turnovers, just as Tipp did last July.

For a team that ransacked Limerick with their long puck-out twice in 2024, teams have disarmed that weapon now; Cork just sourced 0-2 from their long restart last Saturday. Once Galway pushed up on Cork’s puck-out in the second half, Patrick Collins may as well have been hammering the ball off a brick wall. And Cork kept banging their heads off that wall. Again.

If the second half of the 2025 All-Ireland final was considered a freak, last Saturday confirmed it was a pattern, with the same haunting echo.

Overhaul

The only way that will change is by overhauling the panel and going with a new rebuild. And that requires a massive body of work that equally necessitates huge patience. Especially when Cork want to win an All-Ireland now.

Ben O’Connor and his management will have to show the willingness to adapt, learn and upskill all aspects of their management to ensure that the rebuild is done to the highest spec to make sure it a more durable and flexible model than the current one.

Is that a long-term project? Yes and no. It has to be done with the long-term in mind but Galway were coming from a much lower base this time last year and look where they are now?

Cork have plenty of players. A rebuild similar to what Galway managed can be achieved sooner than maybe Cork think. 

It just needs to be done in a new way with new foundation stones to ensure that the roof doesn’t keep caving in.