We’ll go on

What’s that oft recycled Beckett quote again? “Fail. Try again. Fail again. Fail better”, a line that is meant to inspire fortitude through frustration and when read in the context of the Cork hurlers over the past couple of championship campaigns, I’m sure you can begin to see the resonance. We lose. We try again. We lose again. We lose…better? After last summer’s exploits, we briefly became accustomed to the art of valiant losing, dying on our swords in increasingly intrepid ways behind enemy lines. A year on and having indulged in two further courses of sumptuous Munster championship action, our senses have become even more finely attuned to the taste of defeat, with the latter sampling once again far more palatable than the former. I don’t think Beckett ever expounded on what comes after the failing better part though.

The unfortunate reality at this juncture is that we simply can’t afford to keep losing, better or otherwise. At some stage, we have to actually, you know, win a game. A game against the five-in-a-row chasing All-Ireland champions to be more exact. Whether or not we’re capable of such a feat remains the question. You see, here’s the thing. We’ve witnessed three under-20 trophies in four years and three games in less than 12 months where we’ve come within a puck of a ball of beating two of the best teams in the country. All of which should indicate that we simply can not be that far away. Yet by a similar token, the inability thus far to unearth more than a smattering of gems from those long-awaited underage successes, coupled with the inescapable truth that Cork have failed to win any of their past five championship games provides more than enough evidence to suggest that we are quite far away indeed. Hurling’s own Schrodinger’s paradox then – we may or may not be cat.

Well, for forty or so minutes against Clare, we most certainly weren’t. Discourse surrounding our playing style has been around longer than the famine itself but for much of the game, Cork found a happy medium that had Clare in all sorts of bother. The running game that we have become so accustomed to over the years still remains the most effective weapon in our arsenal, even more so when we can keep the other crowd guessing with the occasional (some might say too occasional) long ball into Connolly. That twin approach should have yielded two first-half goals. Zero were accrued, of course. And considering Cork’s recent propensity to become the architects of their own comedic downfall that had not yet occurred at that point, ruefulness was the overriding feeling when the half-time whistle blew.

Then Hoggy did what Hoggy does. And has done now for the best part of two decades. Honestly, how many other hurlers, past or present, would have had the impudence to attempt such a finish? Not many, and fewer still would have executed it. Thirty-six years young this month and such is his genius that one wonders if he could become hurling’s first inter-county octogenarian, to be kept in cold storage down the Páirc and wheeled out for years on end to perform his magic tricks when needs must. That another act of wizardry was required twenty minutes later says a lot about the supporting cast.

Clare were shipping water when Shane Barrett burst through on goal in the immediate aftermath of Horgan’s opener. He had Connolly inside and unmarked but opted for the one-handed strike into the corner to make it a nine-point game. Fair enough, as long as it pays off, I guess. It didn’t. Five minutes later, Shane O’Donnell had a similar, if slightly more difficult opportunity to find the net. Instead, he picked out Rodgers inside and the lead was down to three. Decision making, game intelligence, scoring efficiency; call it whatever you like. There’s a reason that lad is a Harvard alumnus and there’s a reason why we don’t score nearly as much goals as we should.

And there’s a multitude of reasons why we concede far too many of them. The sight of an opposition player galloping through on goal unhindered has become a regular occurrence over the past decade. We’ve certainly made a habit of making heroes out of these lads and changes in personnel and management have done little to assuage that particular exasperating vulnerability. Prior to that even, with the game still level, Conor Cleary played a simple, lofted pass into the path of David Ryan out by the sideline around fifty yards from the Cork goal. Do that against any county with credible All-Ireland aspirations and it just does not translate into an immediate goal threat. Different story against us where such a simple pass suddenly and inexplicably renders the entire midfield and half back line ahead of the play and out of the game. Only the inner sanctum of the Cork dressing room knows how such fundamental errors are still happening. Or even more worryingly, perhaps they don’t know either.

In losing to Clare, Cork relinquished a 124-year unbeaten home record against their Munster rivals. Yes, ok, the two had only met once down here before this year but a record is still a record, especially when you’re a county like ourselves, clinging desperately onto the coat tails of its own fading legacy. The Clare suits, if you recall, chose to take on Limerick in Limerick last year, rather than face the charming meander through Charleville and Buttevant to grace our own hallowed sod. We should have had them traipsing back home with even sourer memories of the place, rather than penning ballads to the bauld David Fitzgerald. Now it’s Limerick’s turn and as was the case in the lead up to any of the previous encounters with our all-conquering neighbours, there is little in the way of a logical argument to be made in favour of a Cork victory.

And yet. The masses will still descend on the Marina and the Saturday night fever pitch will make for an occasion befitting the GAA’s greatest product. Once more unto the breach and all that. A full house and a Cork crowd that have persevered and will continue to persevere, forever clinging to the faint hope that someday, something might just happen. A hope that someday, all the seeds sown through the losing and the losing better might just begin to bear fruit. An absurd outlook on the whole sorry situation perhaps but look, what else would we be at?

As Beckett might say himself –

We can’t go on. We’ll go on.

Up the Rebels.