Cork GAA Discussion Thread

Amprodude wrote: »

We dont have any hope against Kilkenny really. If we were to win this one it would probably be the greatest win ever in Cork hurling given how unsuccessful we have been over last few years. Is the game on in Thurles? Sorry im on holidays and havent been in touch with fixtures.

2pm thurles kid its on tv.Sat at 5 for the football.

InchicoreDude wrote: »

Cork should definitely beat Galway. Despite the result against Armagh, Galway are very very poor. Armagh kicked some really awful wides in the Galway game that I just cant see Cork kicking. If Galway are to have any chance against ye, they really need to raise their game a lot.

However, the current Galway team are very different to the one who lost against Mayo. They have had 3 qualifier games since then and there have been many [good] changes to Galways starting team in the meantime.

Id agree Galway are a much changed team than the Mayo match.Galway,with confidence ,are always dangerous.

Teams like Armagh,are bread and butter to Cork under CC.They try and take on Cork physically and Cork with the likes of Kissane,Canty,Gould .AOC are suited by these teams.

Cork played a much better Tyrone,team in 09 and beat them handy in the end.Even in the league,it was the same.Tyrones physicality suited Cork.

Cork have always performed well against ulster teams,bar Donegal who were a super counter attacking team and played with pace and intelligence last year.

But teams like Galway,that don't take Cork on physically but play fast,attacking fluent football and use the width of the ptich to the full have caused us problems.

Down proved that in 2010.

Galway are no kerry,no one is,but are similar in that they produce intelligent footballers,with natural talent and footballing instinct that unlike our A team under Couhinhan,appreciate space and play the game simple.

They have adapted since the Mayo game,as they played a two man full forward line.While not a blanket style,they have a better balance.

And at midfield where they destroyed Armagh they have the talent to cause Couinhans prefferd options problems.

If cork pick,clancy,cahalane,walsh at midfield,Jamie Sullivan, and Kelly or Collins and sheehan we will win as Galway are weak at the back.


But Couinhan could well start Clancy out of position at corner back,a half back line of Kissane and Canty,a midfield of AOC and Pearse O Neill.

And then a half forward line with Gould ,and the icing on the cake ,the most stupid decison ever,Aidan Walsh as a centre forward.

See who kerry put at CF.A genuis,a natural and pure talent in Cooper.We go for Walsh who has many talents but not a CF.
A complete difference,in the statement of intent how both teams want to play.

Kerry play football,Cork play basketball.

A blind man on the street can see that.

Sheehan,Kelly or Collins are not a Cooper,but at least their our nearest thing to him,and at least are natural footballers,comfortable in both scoring and creating,something Aidan Walsh and Fintan Gould are clearly not.

Cork are so predictable under Couinhan.

Fair play to Limerick,Munster minor hurling ,champions.

They beat a highly fancied waterford team.They had Eamon Cregan involved.

It shows the difference between them and Cork.They pick a top class guy.He has done amazing work with Mary I.

God,some day,i wish we could do the same.Anthony Nash cousin ,Barry,played for Limerick.

ShamoBuc wrote: »

Great result for Limerick hurling.

A simple template,for success,put the right people in charge.
What do we do?we give Pat another two years.

He would not even last in the Camoige Championship.Wexford,current Champs,lost all games under their new manager.

They did not waste time.They sacked him a few weeks ago,and brought back the superb JJ DOYLE as seen by winning them 3 in a row,and Wexford an U21 hurling leinster title,who since then have turned their season around,and are in an all ireland semifinal.

It looks likely between the men and women,Doyle will have a busy september.

corcaigh07 wrote: »

We should beat Galway lads, yes Killarney was a disaster but hopefully this is the game where the team properly starts to take shape. Even CC and his selectors are bound to have learnt something from Killarney.

Have faith, if we can't, who can?

The management said at the start of the week,that they took stock of what happened in killarney,but are going to take a balanced view on things,as wholesale changes may not be the best thing for the team.

That diminshed my faith.What this team needs badly is changes,but the management refuse to accept this.

Cork Footballers,last training session tonight,before Sat.
Interestingly to see is it a dummy team.

He has no excuses to pick one,tonight he picks the team ,plenty time for the media..

On The Line: Dónal Óg Cusack On Hurling
Wednesday, July 24, 2013

When people say, may you live in interesting times, I'm never sure if they mean it as a blessing or as a curse!
There is an undercurrent of malice in a lot of what gets written these days and a decline in ethics in some quarters.
This is an interesting summer for the GAA. Good games. Good weather. Good final chapters to look forward to. All blessings.
It's interesting too in another sense which may be more of a curse than a blessing. The relationship between the media who cover the games and those who cross the sideline to actually play them is declining in a way which should alarm everybody on either side of the divide.
Last season finished with the replayed All Ireland hurling final between Kilkenny and Galway and that great event was marked by a spurious attempt to turn a harmless remark in a long interview given by Joe Canning into a blood feud with Henry Shefflin. I'm sure Henry, if he read the original piece, knew the spirit in which Joe was speaking. I'm sure Joe's conscience was clear. But he didn't need the bother, the phone calls, the talk. Neither did Anthony Cunningham or Galway. So why would Galway players make themselves available again?
What inter county player didn't look at that debacle and wonder why he should ever give an interview even to a journalist he knows and trusts if other journalists are going to lift lines out of context and turn them into 'controversies'.

This summer you can smell the distrust. In the last few weeks things have gotten even worse. My friend Sean Óg, who has given as much to Cork hurling as just about anybody I know, is quoted as saying that there are fellas playing for Cork now who come from clubs that Sean Óg has never heard of.
I read that first and grinned. Anybody who knows the man would know that this was a little joke and not a little bitterness. First, Sean Óg is playing hurling and football for Na Piarsaigh since the time he could shave. He has been everywhere and played everywhere. Second, there isn't a club, a school or a crossroads in the county of Cork where he hasn't presented medals or given talks or taken coaching sessions on his own time, and free gratis may I add.
Spend an hour with Sean Óg anywhere. It's impossible not to experience a person coming up and reminding him of the time he visited this hamlet and that village and Sean Óg saying things like "Oh yeah, are you the cousin of the man who wouldn't go on in the junior semi final in 1976 because he had chicken pox."
Sean Óg has clocked up more miles on the highways and byways than a rural farms inspector but the man was left twisting in the wind.
This week things got worse. I was out to dinner with a couple of past and present intercounty players on Friday night. Part of the conversation involved media, journalism, punditry, and entertainment versus analysis etc. On Saturday morning one of them sent me a link from a newspaper article saying ‘this sums it up’. I read of an unnamed "former star" being quoted on the woes of Cork hurling.
This courageous mystery man insulted Bernie O'Connor, John Allen, Donal O'Grady and pretty much every club coach in Cork with an unchallenged assertion about where Cork hurling had gone wrong. The ludicrous point he made wasn't even put to Bernie, John or Donal for response. Is this a new low? Is this the future? Slating people anonymously? I thought that only happened in chat rooms, not newspapers.
Kieran McGeeney waded in this week giving expression to that old maxim of the dressing room that there are a lot of former players turned pundits who are far braver with a pen or microphone in front of them than they ever were with a number on their back. Kieran was a unique and spiky man as a player and he is the same as a manager. He's also a phenomenally dedicated and interesting man. You can see though that there are people out there happy to give him a kicking and take cheap shots when the chance comes. Kieran deserves better.

Anybody who has made it to an intercounty dressing room as a player or a manager has a lifetime worth of home truths, disappointments and droppings for big games under their belt. They aren't looking to be treated with kid gloves. Nor though are they £200,000 a week strikers who haven't scored in months and spend their evenings in nite clubs with badly spelled names.
Criticism is fine. There is an undercurrent of malice in a lot of what gets written these days and a decline in ethics in some quarters. GAA players and teams could be more open. That openness demands responsibility from journalists though.
There is no point in sitting down and arguing about whose fault this impasse between the media and the dressing room is. We need to get together and agree that it is doing the GAA no good, it is doing players no good, it is doing media no good , it is doing sponsors no good and it is doing fans no good. We need to find a better way, otherwise the toxic world of the premiership and the tabloids is what we will end up with.
We just have to look at rugby. The game has done a brilliant job of selling itself to Ireland in the last ten years. Absolutely brilliant. Players are available. They accept media as part of the package. The big picture. The upshot of all that is that if you sat a roomful of kids down and showed them mugshots of the Irish rugby team and mugshots of the Kilkenny hurling team, one of the greatest sides ever to play the greatest game, I have no doubt that they would all recognise Henry Shefflin because he has always been media friendly but overall they would know more rugby players. That hurts. I've even heard of clubs getting rugby players in as celebrities to present end of year medals. Foot, meet Mr. Gun. Fire!
I played on a Cork side filled with big characters who seldom minded talking to the media. People had their opinions on us, they loved us or hated us but they knew the characters. The Rock, Corcoran, the twins Ben and Jerry, Sean Óg, John Gah, Joe Deane, Setanta when he was with us. They were big recognisable characters. They played with some fellas who preferred to keep themselves to themselves and that was grand but the game needs faces and stories that people can identify with.

Interesting times. Interesting times. Sometime soon we need to get back to basics. We have reached the stage where it is just so much easier for teams to give zero access (or limited access that sees the player getting a few bob and the media outlet mentioning some product that the player is wearing in exchange for that limited access) In that environment of zero access and co-operation standards are bound to fall and the space devoted to quality coverage of the GAA in the media will fall away.
There is a big picture. A sport with recognisable characters and personalities brings people through the gates and sponsors into the ring. It lifts the sport. You look at television these days and the only GAA players featuring on quality ads are the Gooch and Henry who have been open and talkative for many years. That's good for Henry and the Gooch but it is good for the game too.
Imagine now that you are a publisher or an advertiser and looking to do a national project with a high profile current GAA player. Take Henry, the Gooch, Paul Galvin and maybe a few more out of the equation. How many instantly recognisable faces are you left to choose from?
This has been a great and interesting summer but some of the fun has been replaced by paranoia and bitterness. We in the GAA owe it to the games we love and to the paying customers and the next generation to do better, and the media owes it to its own ethics to try harder to be trusted.
We should be smarter than this. Media can be interesting. And not necessarily a curse. Just ask Drico or Paulie or ROG or Jonny or Simon…
This is the latest of Dónal Óg Cusack's exclusive 'On The Line' hurling columns in 2013, which will feature on GAA.ie throughout the summer.

munsterlegend wrote: »

I agree Walsh should be midfield instead of o neill and paddy Kelly in from the start at centre forward. Kerrigan is a good sub to introduce for tired legs later in the game. Worry about our back division particularly Cahalane and canty. Cadogan hopefully is in a better state of fitness than he was in killarney.

Alan o Connor is not past his best and I expect him to have a big game on Saturday.

Can't see apart from kickouts why o Halloran was dropped.

If Walsh was at midfield ,and kelly or collins at Cf,then we could get away with Canty at CB.

As either one could play a sweeper role ahead of him,and can counter attack with pace,play a quater back type role.
Walsh has the pace to stop Flynn running through from midfield.

You would have then one of Kelly,or Collins at Cf with O Rourke who could move the ball fast in the half forward line.

Cahalane onces,he's confidence is okay after the last day,and is left at half back should be fine.

Canty is a much better fit than,say Kissane or O Leary,and onces he is protected offers leadership and defensive organistion,allowing Loughrey to bomb forward.

The problem is the way the team is picked,he could be exposed and isolated.
I hope you are right about AOC ,but i have not seen him play a good game since 2011,and even them Aidan o Shea destroyed him at Croke park.

Conroy and Flynn are very mobile players.

Walsh at Cf is a conservative choice.

When you think of players like Joe Kavanagh,Tompkins,Conor Mccarthy,etc,who brought style and creativity when they played for Cork,this shows how far off Walsh is.

We are not short players at CF,and it just shows everything wrong with Counihan as a manager to pick him their based on a 20 minute cameo against a tired Kerry team.