Dr Crokes turn attention to higher peaks
Mccarthy With Grandmother Winning Tom His Crokes' Maher/inpho Lovely Doyle Celebrates Tom Dr Scenes: Mary Pic:
In the most open and novel All-Ireland Club series in living memory, new-look Dr Crokes have ended up as the most experienced of the remaining four.
We say new-look because, of course, the current Crokes class looks a heck of a lot different to that last crowd from Lewis Road to keep the lights on over Christmas.
Half the starting Crokes defence at Mallow yesterday were playing in their first Munster final. The two corner-backs from that inexperienced half, Evan Looney and Maidhcí Lynch, were superb at getting a toe here and foot there to the few Loughmore deliveries sent in across a suspenseless opening half hour.
Forwards Tom Doyle and Cian McMahon were in the same green boat as Looney, Lynch, and Charlie Keating.
You wouldn’t have thought it looking out at them. Doyle kicked a tidy pair and was hailed as “brilliant” by forward colleague Micheál Burns during the post-match celebrations.
In between the sprinklings of inexperience at either end was their midfield island of Mark O’Shea and Michael Potts. When Crokes last spent the winter preparing for a shot at Croke Park, O’Shea and Potts were the up-and-comers of that time, fighting for a minute here and a cameo there.
At Mallow, O’Shea took a stranglehold at midfield and devoured the Loughmore restart. Potts’ name, meanwhile, was to be found on the assist sheet.
Fionn Fitzgerald, Brian Looney, Daithí Casey, and Kieran O’Leary would have been among the leaders driving and guiding Potts, O’Shea, and other younger teammates through the Christmas of 2018 and on into a new year that finished - albeit disappointingly - in Croke Park.
Fitzgerald, Looney, Casey, and O’Leary are still on the scene, still contributing, but the baton of leadership has passed. At the front of the black and amber vanguard is Gavin White, Burns, and Tony Brosnan.
Whenever Errigal Ciarán wrap up their own provincial celebrations and get around to studying tapes of Pat O'Shea's men, their All-Ireland semi-final analysis will begin, will be dominated by, and will finish with Burns and Brosnan. They are the attacking arteries of O’Shea’s team.
When this Munster final began to emerge from its suffocated and vacuum-packed first half state, it was Burns and Brosnan carving out the openings and chalking up the white flags.
After Tom Doyle’s second half opener, Burns won and converted a free. Brosnan quickly tagged on a score of his own. Not even five minutes of the second period elapsed and Crokes were already darting clear at 0-7 to 0-3.
Off either foot, Brosnan raised three white flags in the 13 minutes after half-time. He’d add a fourth on 48 minutes. Burns followed with another free won and free converted. 0-11 to 0-5. Game over.
The pair contributed 0-8 of Crokes’ Munster semi-final 0-9. Here, they accounted for 0-10 of Crokes' 0-15. This included combining sweetly and fittingly for the champions’ final score.
“There's just been a resurgence from the man,” captain David Naughton said of Burns. “Whatever happened with Kerry is in the past, but he has absolutely proven that he's good enough to get back in there in the future if he wants to.”
The first-half came from a different playbook. It’s a playbook that prompted Jarlath Burns over a year ago now to put Jim Gavin at the head of the FRC.
Loughmore-Castleiney had watched Rathgormack’s defence-first approach unsettle Crokes and almost deliver a sensational result. Accepting their own limitations, Loughmore said to themselves, to mirror that approach represents our only road to success.
The contrasting expectations were amplified by the respective supporters. Loughmore’s faithful cheered turnovers, frees won, and frees brought forward. Crokes cheered the ball being put over the bar.
There were periods of play running for two, three, and nearing four minutes where the Killarney side held onto possession and played along the outskirts of the Loughmore barricade.
“It’s stick or twist,” Loughmore manager Shane Hennessy said afterwards. “Do you go out on them, and if you go out and press them then, space opens up and you could be punished? It’s trying to find the happy medium.
“A couple of times when we did push out, we turned them over. But then, the flipside is a few times when we did push out, they were able to get scores, so it’s hard to know.”
The double Tipp champions disappeared under the main stand at half-time to a standing ovation.
Despite not having a shot on or off target for the opening 19 minutes, they trailed only by the minimum. There was no standing ovation for them at full-time. Or for the opposition, mind.
Crokes had come and taken care of business as they were expected to, even if the sprinklings of class that breathed room and inevitability into this provincial decider were late arriving.
Munster title number nine to complete a restorative year. Attention now turns to higher peaks.
M Burns (0-2 frees), T Brosnan (0-5 each); T Doyle, K O’Leary (0-2 each); B Looney (0-1).
L McGrath (0-3, 0-3 frees); P O’Connell (1-0); L Treacy (0-2); A McGrath (0-1).
S Murphy; E Looney, F Fitzgerald, M Lynch; C Keating, G White, B Looney; M O’Shea, M Potts; M Burns, G O’Shea, C McMahon; T Brosnan, D Shaw, T Doyle.
K O’Leary for McMahon (45); D Naughton for Keating (53); A Hennigan for Doyle, D Casey for Shaw (both 58); M Cooper for (Potts 60).
J Hennessy; J Ryan, W Eviston, L Egan; E O’Connell, T McGrath, J Meagher; L Treacy, J McGrath; T Maher, B McGrath, E Connolly; L McGrath, N McGrath, C McGrath.
P O’Connell for C McGrath (HT); C Connolly for J McGrath (46, inj); A McGrath for T McGrath, E Connolly for Maher (both 52).
C Lane (Cork).