Say Hello, Wave Goodbye?

“See better, Lear, and let me still remain the true blank of thine eye.”

                                                                                                             Kent, King Lear

Stop me if think you’ve heard this one before.

A Cork team caught hook, line and sinker by a team that completely outthought them and outfought them, more often than not, during a game that Cork never seemed to truly go after. A game where Cork was permanently on the back foot, always reacting instead of forcing the game to bend to their will, a game where they just seemed to wait for it to happen.

And thus, the perceived progress of last season, despite not making it out of Munster, has been followed by a significant step backwards. It just all feels so familiar, so frustrating, so excruciating. Throw in a few Kerrymen thrilled by the fact that our footballers were good, but not good enough and it was quite the weekend.

It didn’t take long for that feeling to kick in. Indeed, everything that we may have feared from our trip East on Sunday was calcified seconds after Patrick Horgan gave Cork the lead.

When Shaun O’Brien lined up for his first puckout on Sunday, the Cork defence had been dragged here, there, and everywhere. They were totally exposed, one break of a ball away from disaster and when Jamie Barron broke onto that ball, and sliced his way through the Cork defence, it guaranteed a catastrophic start to Cork’s championship.

It’s hard to explain how Cork got caught so easily, so simply, so naively. How they could be so vulnerable to something so basic. How they completely lost their shape. And how that feeling of vulnerability, that feeling of being one step from disaster remained there in the pit of the stomach throughout. The stench of the inevitable was as potent as the cut grass that has heralded the late arrival of spring as Cork simply gifted Waterford all they really needed; oxygen.

That sense of brittleness in the Cork performance continued throughout and reached its nadir when we were reduced to thirteen men within minutes, just as it seemed that we might just scramble something out of nothing. And yet, incredibly, Cork, mainly through Alan Connolly, did not get wiped out while being down two men. They stayed in contention and that is a fact that only adds to the bewilderment.

It was well known what Cork were walking into here. And that at all costs, Waterford had to be denied the aforementioned oxygen. But all the little things contributed to the downfall. More often than not, Cork looked like a team playing as individuals. Whether that how the defence got dragged around or the ease with which Waterford created mismatches in aerial ability – just like the free that indirectly led to Ciarán Joyce’s black card – or even how, at times, Cork just simply failed to give the ball to the man in the better position.

That lack of cohesion is nothing new, unfortunately, and the consistent nature of our familiar failures raises further questions that are not quite yet for the now. Because this championship is all about just getting out. It was hard to be optimistic on the painfully long drive home on Sunday. Clare roll into town this weekend, then there’s Limerick and if Cork continue from where they began in Waterford, the trip to Thurles that follows will just be another Noche Triste.

As the week has rolled on, it hasn’t got any easier either. However, as we all know, things can change very quickly. The key to the new system is to be able to move on, quickly. The Cork set-up doesn’t have the time to be caught up in great existential questions. They do, however, need to be able to act, quickly. And us supporters need to try and temper things a bit too.

How they might go about turning it around is very much a Catch 22 situation. In Joseph Heller’s classic novel about American pilots serving in Italy during World War II, nobody really wants to fly, because of the obvious dangers. The only way to be grounded by the powers that be is to prove that you are insane. However, the only reason you can fly is if you are insane.

In terms of team selection, everybody was asking the same questions before the game and Sunday. They were asking them a little louder in the aftermath. If a similar team is selected for Sunday, there will be a sense of exasperation down the Páirc. If there are too many changes, then there will be a sense of desperation. It is a delicate balance to strike, and all we want is for a team with the best possible chance of beating Clare to take the field and try and put our season back on track.

At this stage, we all probably expected to see more of the U20s of the past few seasons make their way into the team and to have begun to make it their own. Now would be a good time for them to begin because the alternative doesn’t bare thinking about.  

Which brings us to our old friends from Clare.

The pessimist in us may dread their excellence under the high ball colliding with our struggles in the skies. There’s their physical prowess, their dangerous forwards, their general tenacity and talent along with the small matter of their consistent form across a number of seasons.

What about the optimist in us? We might look at the goals that Limerick scored, and the chances that both Tipp and Kilkenny spurned in losing to Clare in the latter stages of the league. The games always seem to be tight, even when they hammered us in 2022 there was only two points in it in the end. Speaking of 2022, when Cork’s back was to the wall, they found something within themselves to fight their way out.

Sunday is a far greater challenge, and they will have to dig deeper than they have dug in a long time to get what they need.

John Coleman