The fourth goal crystalized Cork’s best intentions. The ball inside was quick, the man inside was in front. Patrick Horgan gave the ball to Alan Connolly on the peel, and Connolly flashed it across to Brian Hayes, deserted in front of the Dublin goal. Quick as a phrase: Horgan, Connolly, Hayes, goal.
But there was a time, not so long ago, when Horgan and Connolly would have been thinking about a shot first, and any second thoughts would have come too late. Last summer, when Cork’s season was on the line, they decided to stack their full-forward line with three deadly finishers and gamble on the chemistry. If they didn’t share the ball, it was doomed. That wasn’t their first instinct.
On Saturday, Connolly, Hayes and Horgan scored 5-5 from play, an overwhelming total that floored Dublin. But below the surface they had a direct involvement in 10 other scores. Five of Cork’s goals involved Connolly: two with the final pass, three with the final touch.
In a Cork jersey this was his best performance, by a distance. Last year, his form tailed off in Croke Park and for most of this season he had been the missing piece. There were flashes in the league final and in the first half against Clare, and there were shiny bits against Waterford, but none of it approached the sum of his talent.
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He scored what turned out to be the winning penalty in the Munster final, but he was taken off in normal time and brought back on in extra time, with just a point to his name and no scent of a goal. Leaving him out must have entered their minds. He had something to prove.
“We expected a huge performance from him today,” said Cork manager Pat Ryan. “But he needed a huge performance because Shane Kingston and Conor Lehane and Jack O’Connor and Robbie O’Flynn, and all these fellas are playing really well at training. You need to be performing because it wouldn’t be right, if you’re not performing, to leave fellas on the line.”
There are very few committed goal scorers in hurling now. The standard of passing is so good that handy points are part of everyone’s plan. Connolly, though, is not just a goal scorer, but a player for whom the difference between a goal and a point is far greater than three to one. The last Cork player to share that outlook was John Fitzgibbon, more than 30 years ago.
Connolly’s numbers are staggering. He has scored 24 goals now in 38 appearances for Cork, in league and championship, even though he started on the bench in about a third of those games. His hat-trick on Saturday was the fourth of his career.
For Connolly to make it at this level though he needed to change. As a young player coming through everybody was aware of Connolly’s potential, but the last thing the Cork seniors needed was another ballplayer who didn’t work hard enough without the ball.
When Cork won the 2020 All-Ireland under-20 final Connolly was the star full forward and Pat Ryan was the manager. In the final against Dublin Connolly was replaced 11 minutes from the end, not because Cork were cruising – they were only four points up at the time – but because Connolly’s work rate had been atrocious. His productivity that day amounted to a pair of pointed frees. There was no future in that.
In Ryan’s press conference on Saturday, even after Connolly had scored 3-2 and made assists for 2-1, the manager mentioned his tackling.
“In the Munster final his work rate was top class with his tackling from behind,” Ryan said. “Today, he probably didn’t work as hard with his tackling from behind because he was winning more ball and that’s where I’d be critical of him a small bit at times.
“But, look, he was really sharp at training over the last three or four weeks. Alan was carrying a couple of injuries at the start of the year. He had a bit of a heel issue and a bit of an Achilles issue. He was playing through them a small bit. We could see a different Alan over the last while. He was hungry.”
Dublin’s inside backs were left defenceless. Cork completely dominated the middle third and the deliveries to Connolly, Horgan and Hayes were quick and drilled and sympathetic and relentless. Two of Dublin’s full-back line were booked in the opening quarter; one of them was replaced midway through the first half; three players tried their luck on Hayes.
Dublin won less than half of their long puckouts and coughed up 17 turnovers in the middle third. In the air, they were obliterated. In the part of the field where they had unsettled Limerick, they were rolled over.
Limerick had failed to score a goal against them and ultimately that was the difference a fortnight ago. On Saturday they couldn’t hold that line.
