Cork GAA Discussion Thread

1. (yellow) Wow! That's a bit harsh, no? Soft, can't hurl, bottlers with a poor manager: you couldn't fix that in a year, not to mind a couple of weeks (if it were the case!!).
2. (red underline) Last time I checked, it isn't an aggregate score for Round Robin result and Munster Final result combined…

I have

1 x Adult
1 x Student /OAP
City End Terrace tickets for Sunday

Cost price if anyone wants them dm me ?

Only getting a chance now to post as I had to work after the match. Yes, it was terribly disapponting as we never got gong at all. Everything that can go wrong seemed to happen. Dalton getting injured straight away was a real blow and Pat Ryan called it right in his interview after the match where he said we didn't score our chances to slow their momentum.

We never got going properly at all and Limerick were hell bent on winning. Its clear now that they really targeted this game. There were a few things that should be noted too however. That limerick penalty was no penalty as Donal Og pointed out, that Limerick fella that we all know about could and should have been sent off on the day, Patrick Horgan at one stage got clearly taken out off the ball by someone (not clear who from camerawork) and should have been at least a yellow and a free, Connolly had his face mask pulled and then later at a vital time we were fouled and ref put his arm up to give advantage, Fitzgibbon went on and took the shot and missed but we didn't get a free. Ref deemed play to have gone on too long I think. I noted the last one as in the Cork U20 game against Clare, Clare player was fouled and he ran on for 10 yards and played a 1-2 with another player and took his shot but missed. Then they still got the free. I remember thinking that was a long advantage but fair enough. That one was way longer than the one we didn't get !

I'm not saying the ref rode us but we just didn't really get any of those 50-50 calls.

In saying all that above, we have to look at our own performance as that is all we can control. We looked like we had that age old excuse of "a big block of training just done"!! It felt exactly like the first league game with Tipperary. Everyone second to the ball and chances not being taken on the scoreboard. A real below par performance.

I think it was our shooting that really let us down yesterday. We looked really rusty and the 1-16 scored was our lowest since a 0-13 against Tipp all the way back in 2016! We only sciored 54% of our total shots whereas Limericks was 74% I doubt we will play that bad again but if we do, we will be gone.

Bear in mind, just like the "hype" from some quarters about us before the game, the pessimism is over the top too. Yes, I expected a way closer game but after we got the goal and then they scored the penalty, you could feel Limerick go "phew" as they feared another comeback was on. I said before the game, that f we were close to them near the end, we would win. Now even without the penalty, I think we were too far back but it shows that they feared it too.Remember they were at home so they should really be winning anyway. Just like we are at home now to Waterford in front of a packed house so we should be winning.

Surely the players will be hurting now and want to make amends. That first Tipp league game was brutal but the players bounced back to beat Kilkenny at home. Yes I know it was the league but the performance yesterday felt very similar. I would feel confident about beating Waterford at home. I don't think they have enough forwards to punish us like Limerick can. Of course you never know what might happen but once we perform at home we will win. Yesterday we did not. Then hey presto…….who do we play again? We would be playing Limerick in a Munster final again. Now who will the "hype" be on? Surely we will have learned a lot about what went wrong. A whole match to disect and analyse. I think we will end up playing them twice more.

Really we must remember that it is our own hands and we are at home. If I told you before the championship began, one of the 2 All Ireland finalists will be gone with a game to spare and the other only has to win at home to be in a Munster Final, you would probaby say we are gone and Clare will be very tough to beat at home, the lucky fellas!

So win at home and we get Limerick again. Even a draw is not a disaster as we would be third.

Then say Limerick were to beat us again in the final, we would still be not knocked out! Then we could be playing them again after that and they won't be at home. As Pat Ryan said, it is a Marathon, not a sprint. We need to focus on Waterford now and bring everything at them at home.

We need to knuckle down and focus on Waterford now and then worry about anyone else after that, but the footballers are renewing acquaintances with Meath in Navan this Saturday. We haven't played them in the Championship since the 2007 all Ireland semi final. They went into that one as favourites after beating Tyrone whilst we weren't all that impressive in beating Louth and Sligo.

We put in a great performance on the day and trashed them though. There was a bit of argy bargy between Noel O'Leary and Graham Geraghty as well. Did he ever get up off the ground after that dig from Noelie?😁 Oh i have great time for Geraghty as a player and person. Both these counties have fallen from grace in more recent times but football needs both Cork and Meath back at the top table again.

It comes and goes in cycles and Limerick fans had a lot of traumatic defeats over the years from 1974 to 2017. I was delighted to see them get over the line in 2018, but they almost blew it against us in the semi final and Galway in the final. As we've seen they've gone from strength to strength since though!

Here's another analogy and i'm no Liverpool fan but look at a young Liverpool fan in the 90's growing up with the teasing from Man United fans. Now the kids of those United fans feel like the Liverpool fans that their parents were making fun of back in the day! For all this talk about success and failure coming in cycles though, Cork will be winning no all Ireland until we toughen up and smarten up.

Pat Ryan confirms Dalton and O'Leary are a big doubt for Sunday but would be ok should we progress. He also confirmed Rob Downey had not trained much before the Limerick game but the half he played will help him now for Wateford game. Its quite obvious now that he should not have even started the Limerick game.

I think there may be a few changes like Cormac O Brien and Mullins coming in. I'm a huge fan of both. No, Horgan won't be dropped.

Madness starting Downey. You’d wonder what the thinking was