Defending Munster champions Cork are up and running

Cork 2-23 Clare 1-21

The usual shoot-out between these two but the Munster champions roll up the road to Thurles for next week’s showdown against a wounded Tipperary in a good state of mind.

John Meyler was content but brisk in his willingness to allow the Rebels to dwell on the first joy of summer: that is a luxury limited to the post-match crowd above in the Hi-B bar and other city watering holes.

“There are no cushions. Clare is over. It is ten past six. Forget about it. We now have to go to Thurles to face Tipperary. That is the new challenge facing us. It is a whole change from previous years.”

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This, then, is the new dispensation. Forget about saving hay. There is scarcely time to grab a take-away. An 80th minute goal from Seamus Harnedy finally put the game beyond the reach of Clare, who paid a high price for not being more efficient here. The second half was framed around a long break in play after Cork forward Robbie O’Flynn was hurt after a high-speed collision with his team-mate, Conor Lehane, when both players only had eyes for the ball. The concern from both sides for the young forward was clear as he was treated on the field, with Lehane, in particular, struggling to keep his focus on the task ahead.

“When Robbie got injured I was a bit rattled because I was involved,” he said afterwards.

“It was awful to see him down. But you have to regroup and say: nothing is going to change now. Thank God he is okay. I didn’t see him coming at all. I just put the hurley out to the ball . . . I felt a smack. I didn’t hear him coming. Neither of us called it to be fair. I was a bit rattled. I think David McInerney was involved as well and unfortunately Robbie came out the worst of it.”

When the game did resume, Lehane paid the best possible tribute by immediately scoring a goal. Pat Horgan, in a brilliant all-round second half, chased down a long range point from Shane Kingston that was drifting to the right of the Clare posts and batted it back into play. There was nobody home for Clare; Lehane met it at speed and finished emphatically.

“It was a wide ball, I believe, based on the television cameras,” said Clare joint-manager Gerry O’Connor afterwards. He wasn’t that put out: from the throw-in, both sides had been joined at the hip and Clare responded in the 62nd minute, with Shane O’Donnell turning sharply onto Cathal Malone’s ball and lobbing a visionary pass for Tony Kelly, who beat Cork goalkeeper Anthony Nash in the race for the ball and then flicked the ball home. It was, however the only one of a litany of goal chances which Clare completed.

“We were clean through and had opportunities but the final finish wasn’t there today,” O’Connor agreed.

Clare mixed the good and the bad throughout, firing eight first half wides that were all reasonable scoring chances and over-complicating other attacks with an extra pass when the direct route looked a better bet.

They repeatedly sought to get Shane O’Donnell involved but their best first half move, when the Eire Og man took a low ball on the run and played a sweet return pass to David Reidy, who was coming through at speed, ended when Reidy was engulfed by the entire Cork fullback line, who scrambled back really well.

The first half ended 0-11 to 0-10 in Cork’s favour: the Munster champions still led by a point when O’Flynn suffered in that collision and it was 1-19 apiece after 71 minutes. Both teams, in short, seemed to have an instant, quick fire response to any score by the other. There was no sustained period of dominance for either county and so the game settled into a series of virtuoso displays: Colm Galvin and Kelly for Clare, Horgan, Mark Coleman and Darragh Fitzgibbon for Cork.

A huge point from Lehane, when he pulled a monstrous puck-out from Nash out of a busy sky, gave Cork a critical three point edge in that long period of extra time. The home team were moving well at this stage and suddenly Clare found themselves chasing the match with time ticking down.

The result meant that Cork continue to frustrate Clare since that shimmering All-Ireland series of 2013.

“Yeah it is not much of an edge though,” said Gerry O’Connor.

“This summer is early yet and you never know how things evolve. Cork have fine hurlers. They are one of the best teams in the country. They were able to respond quite well. They have some great players and were able to conjure up a response. We are playing in Cork’s back yard as well and it is not easy turn ‘em over down here.”

And maybe it is true that Cork’s potency and dash was a little overlooked in the long, long build up to this All-Ireland series. “We’re used to that,” Lehane shrugged afterwards.

“We don’t take any notice of that.” Certainly they looked to have added a little bit of physical strength and, as Meyler emphasised, work rate, to the eye-catching skill and score-taking of a summer ago. Colm Spillane was outstanding in a fullback line that had, at times, a formidable look and their athletic half-backs were still full of running as the clock ticked eighty minutes.

A sterner and perhaps darker test awaits them up the road next Sunday afternoon. But the defending Munster champions are up and running.

CORK: 1 A Nash; 2 S O'Donoghue, 3 D Cahalane; 4 C Spillane; 5 C Joyce, 6 M Ellis (0-2), 7 M Coleman (0-1); 8 D Fitzgibbon(0-3), 9 B Cooper (0-1); 10 D Kearney, 11 C Lehane (1-2), 14 S Harnedy (1-2); 13 L Meade, 12 R O'Flynn (0-1), 15 P Horgan (0-10 6 frees).

Substitutes: 20 S Kingston for 13 L Meade (43 mins), 18 T O’Mahony for 12 R O’Flynn (53 mins inj), 21 D Brosnan (0-1) for 10 D Kearney (68 mins),

CLARE: 1 D Touhy, 2 P O'Connor, 6 McInerney, 4 J Browne; 5 D Fitzgerald, 3 C Cleary, 7 S Morey; 8 C Galvin (0-3), 9 T Kelly (1-3, 1 free); 10 C Malone, 11 J Conlon (0-5), 12 D Reidy (0-3 2 frees); 13 C McGrath (0-1), 14 P Duggan (0-4 frees), 15 S O'Donnell (0-2).

Substitutes: 26 D Corry for 14 P Duggan (57 mins), 20 M O’Malley for 2 P O’Connor (69 mins), 23 I Galvin for 12 D Reidy (75 mins), 19 J Shanahan for 8 C Galvin (76 mins).

Referee: S Cleere (Kilkenny).