Doing it by Halves

Forty-five years ago, after finally vanquishing Jimmy Connors in the Masters semi-finals after sixteen consecutive defeats to his old foe, tennis player Vitas Gerulaitis uttered the immortal quote, “And let that be a lesson to you all. No one beats Vitas Gerulaitis 17 times in a row”. It’s questionable whether Pat Ryan felt the urge to echo the sentiments of ‘The Lithuanian Lion’ in the immediate aftermath of Cork’s latest instalment with their Munster adversaries, but should he have done so, would anyone really have objected to such a defiant accentuation of the most threadbare of positives? Take that Lohan, nobody beats Cork five times in a row.

It would, of course, be easy to lose the frame in the brushstrokes here, to get bogged down in the detail and fail to see the wood from the three second half goals. But when all is said and done, Cork still went to the home of the All-Ireland champions, a side they’ve lost to in every championship game since 2021, and came out the other side of it with a draw. Whatever else, that’s not nothing. It’s worth remembering that prior to last Sunday, Cork had lost five of their last six opening games in Munster, the sole victory coming against Davy Fitz’s abject Waterford side two years ago. So, we’re not exactly known for hitting the ground running. Despite the whispers of that old Cork hubris, I can attest that much of the travelling contingent packed into Ciarán’s before the game would gladly have made the journey back home with a solitary point. As became patently clear as the game entered its final stages, some days surviving is enough.

And survive we did, just about. Not that we ever should have found ourselves desperately scrambling for a lifeline. Such was the extent of Cork’s sheer dominance in the first half last Sunday that the spurned goal chances barely made a dent in the communal disposition of the travelling faithful gathered on Cusack Park’s East Terrace. Similarly, no heed was paid to the warning signs when Peter Duggan bested Eoin Downey before the interval, forcing Patrick Collins into action for the first time in the game. Connolly’s pirouette and point from the sideline closed out the half. It was business as usual – just another day in the charmed life of supporting the Rebels all-consuming 2025 iteration. Summertime, and the livin’ is still easy.

We could all, in hindsight, sit here now and say that Clare’s response was inevitable, to castigate Cork for failing to anticipate a second-half reprisal. But in truth, absolutely nobody could have expected what was to come. The second half of the league final against Tipperary obviously left a lot to be desired, and Pat Ryan wasn’t shy in intimating as much after the game. But we still kept them at arm’s length and the Cork defence, at least, would have contented themselves in the dearth of goal chances that came Tipp’s way. Can we say for certain that a similar second-half fade out was born of the belief that the battle had already been won? Only the players would know for sure if complacency did in fact creep into the bloodstream after halftime – and maybe not even them. Such subtle changes don’t tend to knock, but rather seep in quietly, cloaked in confidence. And by the time you notice, it’s already too late.

Maybe without the cushion of a twelve-point lead, Joyce wouldn’t have opted to emulate Ciaran Carey, leading the charge of the light brigade against the same opposition in ’96 before being overturned straight after half-time. And maybe the tigerish touch-tight defending that encapsulated Niall O’Leary’s league campaign wouldn’t have deserted him when the resulting delivery was launched down into his patch. And maybe a strapped-up Robert Downey wouldn’t have switched off for that fatal millisecond, allowing David Reidy to ghost in for the second goal minutes later. Or perhaps, complacency had nothing to do with it. Maybe Clare’s double-barrelled blast would just have happened anyway, such is the furious cadence that has defined this Cork Clare rivalry in recent years – wild, unforgiving and always one breath away from turning any game on its head.

To Cork’s credit, when the lead was whittled down to a perilous five points, they didn’t blink. Supremacy was quickly reasserted. By the time Shane Barrett saw red, the margin was back to nine and even in the ten minutes that followed, Clare could only shave off a single point. But the numerical imbalance was always going to tell. Eventually. And when it did, it was only worsened by Pat Ryan’s puzzling call to redeploy Darragh Fitzgibbon as an auxiliary centre-back. Five v six became four v six, allowing Clare’s defenders, and a roaming Tony Kelly, all the time in the world to plant their feet, pick their moments, and drive ball down on top of Peter Duggan and the increasingly beleaguered Eoin Downey.

It would be unfair to hang Cork’s late collapse on a single moment but Downey’s costly mistake, gifting Clare a free with just three minutes of the seventy left, felt like the perfect snapshot of where Cork found themselves in those dying embers. Tim O’Mahony had just thundered over a monster, and Mark Rodgers had followed it with a gimme free driven wide at the other end. If ever there was a time to kill the flicker of a Clare revival, that was it. Then Collins pucked short to Downey, who lifted his gaze, scanning for life upfield. Options were scarce, too scarce. What followed was hesitation, then panic, the kind of panic that can set in when you’ve been straining against the tide all day. Free in and Rodgers doesn’t miss a second time. Moments later, Duggan was at it again. Green flag for Clare, red warning for Cork. Four-point game.

From that moment on, Cork lost their heads completely and any semblance of structure that they were clinging to was gone with the wind. The until-then imperious Tim O’Mahony coughed up two needless frees, while a lapse in concentration allowed Tony Kelly to exchange a one-two with Cathal Malone for the equaliser. As was the case in last year’s All-Ireland final, those chaotic closing minutes were left to players who, for now at least, haven’t shown that they can bend such a contest to their will. And others who, we all know by now, simply can’t. If Cork are to finally fulfil their ambitions this summer, a better balance will need to be struck to ensure the ship is not left leaderless when the inevitable storm comes. As reluctant as I am to ever dip into rugby’s parlance, Pat Ryan must learn from Ennis: it’s not just about starters. It’s about ‘finishers’ too.

Just five days into the Munster Championship, and already the doubts have begun to resurface — some we thought long buried, others simply tucked away in the quieter corners of the mind, biding their time. I guess it was never going to be that simple. It rarely is with this team. Maybe Ennis was the reminder we all needed — them and us alike. Still, we’ll take the point, thank you kindly. Everything else is just the stuff in between: the highs that sustain you, the lows that drain you, and the madness that keeps dragging you back. And we’ll be back down the Páirc on Sunday.

Up the Rebels