All Ireland Senior Hurling Championship 2025 (Munster And Leinster Championships,Liam McCarthy Cup)

im from cork but the comparison to mayo is in no way fair to those mayo teams. always lost by a hair to the best team of all time

Just heard the Portrush story this morning.

1951, 2019, 2025

Tipp, Tipp, Tipp

Pat Horgan was laughing in Rhys Shelly's face after Cork scored their goal.

An absolute loser in every way. You'd think so much failure throughout his career would have taught him some humility.

Cork the Mayo of hurling?

Cork don’t have any real natural defenders.

They have lads that have great pace covering back, they have lads that are good on the ball, they have lads capable of setting up attacks, and in fairness, lads willing to throw their bodies in the way. But they have poor defensive instincts.

They’re so explosive going forward, everyone seemed to forget what happens at the other end. They’re always coughing up a huge score, and concede serious amount of chances every game.

Ordinarily, they just out-score the opposition because they have the pace and shooting to take out anyone, but the question of whether do they have the quality in defence to hold the opposition if their forwards have been curtailed has been well and truly answered.

They just can’t.

That’s twice this season that the Cork forwards have been completely shut down by the opposition, and twice their defence has been utterly unable to respond in kind and have been ripped asunder.

In all honesty, you need defenders will real dogfight defensive instincts, the type you can’t coach, to win AI’s, because there’s going to be days when the forwards or the system shut down.

Cork don’t have that, and it cost them dearly yesterday. And it’s the same weakness that’s cost them repeatedly for the last 20 years.

I don’t think it was as much of a meltdown as people think. I think it was simply that Tipp completely tied up the Cork attack, and that Cork’s serious deficiencies in defence just came to the fore.

And Tipp made hay. They worm had turned completely by the time of the sending off, but once Downey was (deservedly) sent off that was it. They didn’t have the defensive quality on the field or the bench to do what Tipp did in the semi-final, and dog it out by keeping it tight at the back.

As good as you are going forward, and Cork on their day are better than anyone at that, you have to have solidity at the back for the days you misfire.

PS - Harnedy, Kingston, Lehane, Cahalane were their subs yesterday. Kingston, Lehane and Cahalane struggled badly for consistency years ago, never mind yesterday. They were never going to dig it out for Cork. Harnedy, while still quality, looked barely fit. When you’re relying either unfit men or tried and failed to turn things around, you’re not as good as you think.

Corks fragile mentality is baffling. Actually unbelievable when you think about it.

The way some of their fans go on you'd think they were the great Kilkenny team of the naughties or more recent Limerick team. The arrogance from some of them leading up to the final, I couldn't understand it going by their most recent failures. They're the Arsenal of hurling. All rosy in the early stages, lovely style and goals galore, but when the pressure is on in the biggest games they s**t the bed.

Hopefully yesterday will make some of them a bit more humble going forward, although I highly doubt it

you’re correct, l said that to friends all through the season as they were getting carried away by corks scoring. I said they scored a lot but they conceded a lot at the back, a bit similar to Newcastle under Kevin keegan. You need a solid defence. Tipp are the more complete unit

You can see the common traits in all bottlers and I say that as someone originally from Mayo.

Arrogance, over-confidence, turning up to collect the cup, dismissing the opposition to the point that tactics don't matter, hunger is meaningless and you believe you are so good that even if you have an average day you will still win easily. The team ends up full of passengers and the management didn't even think of a Plan B in case the sh*t hits the fan.

The Ireland rugby team at the World Cup, Mayo in a number of AI finals going back to the 1990s, and Cork hurling and football teams have been guilty.

The Dublin football team were guilty of it from 2000-2009, but they managed to turn it around, so there's hope yet for this Cork team.

Everything is easier with Hindsight.

But it cannot be denied that the pundits as a whole did Tipp a disservice in the build-up to this game.

They foolishly took last years performances as a baseline for the teams ability - ignoring the 10 All Ireland Winners in the squad and multiple underage All Ireland winners, they thought that was our ceiling rather than our floor. The turnaround was always going to be swift. Granted, this is a year or so swifter than most of us would have thought.

Corks weaknesses and failures were ignored. Tipperarys were amplified.

Cork lost a 12 point lead to Clare - sure they were down to 14.

Tipp lost by 15 to Cork playing with 14 for the entire game - sure thats Cork destroying Tipp with their running game.

A 16 point hammering to Limerick was ignored due to a fairly low quality foul ridden yet low free count Munster final that they could only draw in play with a last second 65. Yet Tipp beat Galway by 8 in a Qf and they nearly come out of it worse in pundits eyes due to goal chances conceded, not goals, just chances.

Cork hammer a poor Dublin on the day - bigged up to the max.

Tipp beat the Leinster champions, coming from 2 points down with 14 men and its all about the score board and how Kilkenny would have just pinged a few points over and get a draw at least - after Tipp outscoring them 1-4 to 0-4 in the previous 10 minutes.

The league final was played in Corks home patch, against a Tipp team evolving 2 weeks out from championship.

This year we played:

Cork x 4 - Won 2 Lost 2

Clare x 2 - Won 2

Galway x 2 - Won 2

Kilkenny by 2 - Won 2

Limerick x 2 - Drew 1 Lost 1

Wexford x 1 - Won 1

Waterford x 1 - Won 1

Laois x 1 - Won 1

Played 15 - Won 11 - Drew 1 - Lost 3 (P8 - W6 - D1 - L1 in championship)

This compared to Corks

Played 14 - Won 9 - Drew 2 - Lost 3 - (P7 - W4 - D1 - L2 in championship)

Our Full Forward line was scoring freely each game from play, scoring notably more than Corks yet the talk was solely around Corks dangerous FF line. We stat top of the league after the 6 games and joint top of the Munster championship along side Limerick and Cork. Consistency and performance that were both looked past in the lead up to yesterday.

Pace will win no team an All Ireland. I listened to this back in 2019 - Cork were supposed to run through us that year in the Pairc aswell, Tipp are too slow they said that day - yet we won by 7 and won the All Ireland. Pace doesnt win All Irelands - hurlers do.

John McGrath is a hurler. Jason Forde is a hurler, Noel McGrath and Ronan Maher - hurlers not sprinters but give me those lads any day over what Cork have.

Easy have a go at the pundits but I think anyone saying they did not calling a Cork win is either lying or was a Tipp fan going on heart.

By no metric could a pundits not call anything but a Cork win.

No issue with them calling it for Cork before the game. The manner of the discussion and how they got there was the problem. It was blinkered.

Well the first 2 points mean little in hindsight because Clare were total sht.

People were calling Cork with a few to spare not just pundits. People were right to call it that way because all the evidence pointed towards it.

The biggest noise makers in sport are the ones whk are forever shouting "written off". Teams are never written off its just called as people see it.

I think the Tipp story is amazing considering where they were last year and some said they would need years to rebuild, a good template for teams to follow.

lm sick of Marty morrisey, same old sh””e. He went on and on about one of the Tipp players who would be 31 soon…. So flippin what? It’s hardly pensioner territory 🙄. He was all about the “great” Cork team, he must have been sick that Tipp won. Time Rte got rid of him and Joanne Cantwell who is becoming a bigger pain in hole every match