Aidan McCarthy of Clare is tackled by Declan Dalton of Cork during the Munster GAA Hurling Senior Championship Round 2 match between Cork and Clare at SuperValu Páirc Ui Chaoimh in Cork. Photo by Ray McManus/Sportsfile.
By John Harrington
Cork selector, Wayne Sherlock, expects tactics to go out the window in Sunday’s All-Ireland Final against Clare and for the game to be decided by which team wins the most man-on-man battles.
The Rebels play to a very traditional formation with three inside forwards – Patrick Horgan, Alan Connolly, and Brian Hayes – all positioned very high up the pitch.
Clare tend to drop one of their inside forwards, usually David Reidy, a little deeper, but if they do we can expect Cork’s Niall O’Leary to follow him wherever he goes so we won’t have a situation where either team will have an extra man in a particular sector of the field.
It’ll be a bit of an old-school mano a mano game of hurling so, and that’s something that Sherlock clearly relishes.
“Clare as a county has always had a great tradition of man-on-man hurling,” he says.
“Their forwards will take you on, their backs are hard and strong and they want the ball. It's black and white with a Clare team.
“There's no big issues with tactics and stuff. They want to go in and see who wants it more, which is something I love about Clare. Similar to Brian Lohan's day, this is a Clare team that just keeps going and going.
“They're the team that has come closest to Limerick, who are the best team ever to play the game. And I'd say he's probably happy that Cork are in the final -- let's call a spade a spade.
“They've kind of struggled to beat Limerick. We've beaten them and he probably feels that there's a chance for them to go on and win it now. But if we bring our A game, we feel that we have a great chance as well."
A key battle here or there will likely tip the scales, and surely near the top of list for Cork will be to somehow limit the influence of Clare’s most in-form attacker, Shane O’Donnell, who is arguably in pole position for the Hurler of the Year award currently.
Shane O'Donnell of Clare is tackled by Eoin Downey of Cork during the Munster GAA Hurling Senior Championship Round 2 match between Cork and Clare at SuperValu Páirc Ui Chaoimh in Cork. Photo by Ray McManus/Sportsfile.
Sherlock was a serious man-marker himself in his own playing days, so how would he go about keeping O’Donnell in check?
"I'd probably have to follow him to the toilet, to be honest!”, says Sherlock with a smile. “I'd follow him everywhere. You can't give him an inch. He's definitely a fella who needs to be minded.
“But no matter who you're playing against, there's always somebody who needs minding. Limerick have a few of them and Clare have fellas like that too.
“The one thing we've done, even after losing to Waterford and Clare, is that we've stuck to what we believe in. We focus on our own strengths. Obviously fellas like O'Donnell need minding but we're going to play our game at the end of the day.
“If you go into a game worried about particular players, you'll probably take your eye off the ball a bit. We'll just do what we need to do. Yes, he'll need minding, as will the other five forwards, but the thing about these games is that you look forward to seeing how fellas react and how they deal with them.
“Personally I wouldn't have minded the job of minding him because it's a compliment if you're given that kind of a job on a fella as good as him in an All-Ireland final."
Cork manager Pat Ryan has previously said that if you fail to win an All-Ireland title as a Cork senior hurling manager you’ve failed, period.
That’s a significant burden of expectation to yoke yourself with considering Cork haven’t won one in 19 years, but it’s a mindset that Sherlock also buys in to.
"Yeah. I suppose when we went in for the Under-20 job, in our first meeting as a management group we said that our ambition was to make players good enough to play senior for Cork.
“That was the main aim and we were lucky enough to win two All-Irelands while doing it. But our goal, and it should be the goal in every underage team, is to make sure that you're getting fellas ready to play senior.
“When we then got involved with the seniors, seeing the fellas coming through has been absolutely brilliant. Pat makes no bones about it and he told the players -- the reason anyone plays senior for Cork is to win an All-Ireland.
“Whether you haven't won one in 19 years or two years, the ambition is to win an All-Ireland. It's not about free gear or claps on the back. Winning the All-Ireland is the aim above all other aims.
“And I think this team is really starting to believe in their ability to do that. Hopefully they'll put in a performance against Clare that deserves an All-Ireland. But we're all on the same wavelength. Pat has said from the start that this team needs to win something and we're there to try and facilitate that."