Clare decommissioned Cork's main weapon to win All-Ireland battle
His Goalkeeper Picture: In Final Dejected Cork Piaras ó Clare Hurling After Against Mídheach/sportsfile All Side's Collins Patrick Defeat Ireland The
If Cork wanted to plunge a dagger into Clare’s heart, the first rapier thrust was a piercing and potentially deadly lance. Eibhear Quilligan boomed his puckout down on top of Peter Duggan, Clare’s best puckout target, the player who had rinsed Cork in the air when the sides met in April. And Downey caught it over Duggan’s head.
That was a win it itself but Downey, as he had done when scoring Cork’s inspirational opening point in the All-Ireland semi-final, identified the space and opportunity in front of him – and kept going. And going. And going.
The Clare defenders were staying with their men but suddenly Downey was inside the ’45 and his mind was loaded with intent. Adam Hogan couldn’t go to Downey to cut him off as he didn’t want to leave Alan Connolly unattended in front of the square. The goal was on. Downey had already caught the ball twice but he trusted the power in his wrists and let fly.
His finish off the hurley was emphatic and decisive, but there was also a deeper meaning to that score. Cork had got an early grip on the Clare re-start, mining 1-3 off it in the first quarter. Given the dominance Cork usually exert off their own puckout, if they could keep translating those numbers off the Clare restart into scores, what kind of a total could Cork rack up?
And yet Clare completely flipped those numbers on their head, turning the potential trend of the match upside down. Clare only conceded another 0-2 off their own puckout across the remaining 79 minutes of the match after that first quarter.
Yet just as importantly, they also decommissioned the Cork puckout, including their main warhead – Pa Collins’ long restart. In total, Cork only mined 0-7 from their puckouts. In extra-time, Cork only managed one point from that source.
Clare knew that the winning of the game was always going to be wrapped up in how much they could limit the damage Cork were capable of inflicting off their own puckout. On both days against Limerick, Cork had mined an accumulated total of 4-26 off their own restart, 3-19 of which had come from their booming long puckout. Yesterday, that tally was just 0-6 – across the guts of 100 minutes. Incredible.
In normal time, Cork won just nine of their 32 long puckouts. To make it even worse, Clare translated the 19 long Cork puckouts they won into 0-7, which was a double-whammy for Cork. To ram it down Cork’s throat even more, Clare mined a colossal 3-8 off Eibhear Quilligan’s restart, 3-6 of which came from Quilligan’s long puckout.
Clare trusted themselves all day long, even after Downey’s goal opened up a horrifying vista of what could go wrong with how Clare were set up man-for-man as opposed to a more zonal defensive set-up. Not having a second line of cover does risk leaving themselves exposed, especially when the Clare half-back line follow their men so aggressively on the opposition puckouts. Yet Clare still believed that they would win more of those 50-50 contests than they would lose – which they did.
Shutting down the space outside and around Shane Barrett was also heavily tied into Clare being aerially dominant on the Cork long puckout to limit those secondary opportunities for Barrett. Barrett had gone into the match having bagged 22 scores from 26 shots, as well as assisting 23 scores. Yet he was limited to eight possessions here, two of which came early in the game when he bagged two points.
Aggressively matching-up man-for-man on long puckouts also reduced that long option to Brian Hayes, which is where Barrett had done most of his damage off secondary ball. Yet Clare always knew that Cleary’s power, physicality and ability to try and outmuscle Hayes would limit that option even further. It was diluted even more by how Adam Hogan and Conor Leen attack the ball.
In another form, Hogan and Leen are like a modern iteration of Brian and Frank Lohan. Hogan and Leen were outstanding all afternoon. Hogan was shortlisted for Young Hurler of the Year in 2023. He will be in the running for that award again this year, but he may have to settle for being runner-up once more, this time to Leen who has had a superb debut season.
Clare’s half-back line – Diarmuid Ryan, John Conlon and David McInerney - was outstanding under that aerial bombardment, particularly Conlon. Collins could never get around them, even when he tried to play around or outside them in open pockets of space. In the 33rd minute, Hayes won a long arrowed restart from Collins but Cleary held him up close to the sideline and Hayes was pulled for overcarrying.
Cork were profiting off turnovers, but they had to - because Clare had decommissioned their primary warhead. And with Clare able to unleash far more destruction off their own puckout at the other end, dominating that overall puckout battle gave Clare the platform to win the game.
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