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Irish Examiner
04-07-2025
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Numbers paint a picture of Brian Hayes as hurling's most rounded forward
The one-year anniversary approaches. His coming-of-age performance. His announcement. His authority and sheer awesomeness ever since. On the eve of last year's All-Ireland semi-finals weekend, Seánie McGrath wrote on these pages that the Cork-Limerick fixture would be decided, in large part, by the forward that goes beyond, the forward that goes 'ballistic and catches fire'. Brian Hayes was that bolter. Hayes was coming from so far back the field that the 1-4 he hit Limerick for moved him only to sixth on Cork's from-play scorers chart going into the decider. The 1-4 he took Limerick for also moved him from way back the field and into All-Star contention. Up to that semi-final, Hayes had been learning, growing, and attempting to acclimatise to life as a first-teamer in Pat Ryan's dressing room. On-field contributions would eventually click and come, or so was the hope of Ryan and the Barrs youngster who swapped Cork football for the Cork hurling dressing-room ahead of the 2023 season. Twelve months later and on the first anniversary of his breakout album, Hayes heads back to Croke Park as Cork's top scorer from play and a near certainty for his first All-Star gong. The contributions are now relentless. Late in the first half of the Munster rout of Tipp, Michael Duignan, on RTÉ co-commentary duty, broke out into spontaneous eulogising. 'In the air, on the ground, every way; he's just so good. A powerful man, but a beautiful hurler. Unmarkable, the way he's hurling,' Duignan said of the 6'4 corner-forward. Whether accurate or not, the argument is easily scripted that Hayes is hurling's most-rounded forward at present. The argument is his numbers. His numbers are awesome. Before we ever got to championship, he had signalled a second album worth the Spotify subscription. 5-8 on the road to League ribbons. Patrick Collins' first puckout of the 2025 championship was directed down on top of Hayes. He won it too. The offload to clubmate Ethan Twomey failed to yield an assisted point, accuracy betraying the latest Barrs newcomer. Along with Séamus Harnedy, Hayes is Collins' favourite puckout target. A minimum of five restarts per game are posted to the corner-forward's Eircode. In the second half of Munster final extra-time alone, and with Harnedy substituted, four restarts were aimed at him. Aerially so strong. Equally so on the ground. The first delivery of the 2025 championship into Hayes fell at his feet. His back faced to goal, the 24-year-old snapped up possession, turned and took on Darragh Lohan in an attempt to deliver a sixth goal of the year. The hurley pulled from his hand, Patrick Horgan converted the resulting free. That strength and green flag mindset roared again 10 minutes later. His massively improved skillset also rose to the surface here. Charged in past Lohan along the end-line. The angle so tight, Hayes improvised to bat the sliotar past Eibhear Quilligan. He left Ennis with 2-2, was responsible for another 0-1, and provided confirmation that League form had been successfully carried through. Tipperary at home a week later showcased his vision. A finisher and finder. His floated, inside-the-cover pass for Tim O'Mahony's fifth-minute goal was superbly clever. He had the secondary assist for another 1-1, caught a pair of puckouts and clipped a pair of points. Hayes is one-third of the Cork inside line. Unlike Limerick and Kilkenny, Cork keep three inside always. Sharing the stage with two other headline acts demands patience. It won't always be your turn at the mic. 'At the end of the day, we are doing a role for the team, and that is staying in as close to goal as possible. If you are coming out [looking for ball], you are blocking up the space. If we come out, we try to get ourselves to snap back in quickly,' Hayes said after the championship-extending win over Waterford. It was a game where that patience was severely tested. Maturity and temperament were required and located. Conor Prunty was wedded tighter than a rash. Hayes didn't have a first clean possession until the 31st minute. Come his fifth possession 15 minutes into the second half, the No.15 had struck 1-1, assisted Patrick Horgan's goal, and won the free for a white flag. 2-2 off him in five possessions. Next came leadership. Just past the hour-mark and Waterford were back within three. Momentum and possession were shifting towards the City End. Hayes rose and fetched a Collins restart. Stepping forward to do his piece, even if the quick handpass to Shane Barrett ended with a wide. The assist to Barrett in the Munster final stuck. Selfless and supreme vision. In that Munster final first half, he attempted to manufacture green with each of his four possessions. The first was saved by Quaid, the second was Barrett's successful ground stroke, the third was a handpass to Connolly that spilled loose under pressure, while the fourth was a ground pull of his own that flashed across the face of goal. His ground pull to Hoggie in second-half injury-time was an equalising assist. He assisted 1-2 in total. 'My hurling has come on loads since I came into the panel. I wouldn't have been anywhere near a hurler in comparison to what I am now in terms of just my hurling, my skill level,' said Hayes at the end of May. 'Brian has blossomed into a fantastic hurler for us,' said Pat Ryan of the 3-7 championship contributor this week. His numbers tell a story of far more than blossoming. His bolting days are behind him. He's top of the charts and on the road, as Seánie McGrath predicted earlier this year, to becoming Cork hurling's next 'cult figure'.
Irish Examiner
10-06-2025
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Kieran Shannon: Limerick will be dead set on gaining furious vengeance on Cork
Before we look at what it means going forward, let's first see where Cork-Limerick last Saturday sits with the past. It may have been imperfect but it was almost all the more glorious for that; how the ferocity each side brought to the battle meant the slickest and most goal-hungry team in the country was restricted to a solitary goal and pressurised into shooting 18 wides over 90 minutes and the finest team the Munster championship has ever known was held well below the normal number of shots they'd want and expect to get off. This is exclusive subscriber content. Already a subscriber? Sign in Subscribe to access all of the Irish Examiner. Annual €120€60 Best value Monthly €10€4 / month Unlimited access. Subscriber content. Daily ePaper. Additional benefits.
Irish Examiner
03-06-2025
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Seánie McGrath: Cork flip-flopping symptomatic of how hurlers have divided opinion
I've never come across a fixture that has spawned such differing public opinion - and that's just on the Cork side of the house. There's some amount of local flip-flopping on; was their mind games at play the last time we went to the Gaelic Grounds, were we holding back a small bit, and were we better off losing if it was the first of a Cork-Limerick summer trilogy. Then there are others who feel we won't get within an ass's roar of them this weekend and more again who feel we are heading back to Limerick through the long grass. This is exclusive subscriber content. Already a subscriber? Sign in Subscribe to access all of the Irish Examiner. Annual €120€60 Best value Monthly €10€4 / month Unlimited access. Subscriber content. Daily ePaper. Additional benefits.
Irish Examiner
28-05-2025
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Pat Ryan hopeful Cork can provide value for money in Munster final
Cork manager Pat Ryan has said Munster SHC final ticket prices are expensive, but is hopeful of providing Cork supporters with value for money after their shortchanging of fans at the Gaelic Grounds the weekend before last. Adult tickets for the Cork-Limerick decider on Saturday week are priced at €50 for the stand and €40 for the terrace, an increase of €5 on last year's provincial decider between Limerick and Clare. Ryan singled out the price of terrace tickets as being on the steep side. He added that when demand is as strong as it is for this second championship instalment of Cork and Limerick, prices will always be raised. 'It is, without a shadow of a doubt,' Ryan replied when asked if the increased ticket prices were asking a lot of supporters. 'But what I'd say is that it's definitely expensive if we give the kind of performance to Cork fans that we gave the last day. If we give a performance like we were able to last year against Limerick, it'll be well worth it. If we perform the exact same way as the last day above in Limerick, there wasn't much value for money for people who went up. Our job is to make sure that there's value for money for fans going. 'If the tickets are hard to come by, the prices go up. If the tickets aren't, they'll be down, and that's the same whether it's hurling, football, concerts or whatever it is. But it is difficult for people. I'd especially think that there should be a different terrace price. That's probably a bit of a cost, but I don't set those things.' Corner-back Ger Millerick (fractured finger) will miss the Munster final, while Ryan stated that if Rob Downey (hamstring), Niall O'Leary (groin), and Declan Dalton (hamstring) don't train this Saturday, they won't be in consideration to start against Limerick. None of the latter three featured against Waterford. Elsewhere, Galway manager Micheál Donoghue wants a greater gap between provincial round-robin games. While Donoghue does not agree with the annual calls for additional teams to emerge from the Munster round-robin, he does believe May 25 is too early in the calendar for five of the 11 Liam MacCarthy counties to be finished their business for 2025. The space in the calendar for greater gaps between round-robin games, he said, can be found by shortening a League that fewer and fewer teams are interested in winning. 'Three weeks on the spin in the round-robin is really, really hard. There should definitely be another break in between,' said the Galway boss. 'We talk about player welfare, and I think sometimes the powers-that-be forget the boys are still amateur. You've still got to get up, go to work, and do the day job, and if you have kids. Then you've always got recovery, so it's a massive toll. In the current structure, maybe an extra week or two weeks just to space it out for those elements. 'The league needs to be restructured. As an example, we had half our league games played in 14 days this year, which was absolutely mental. So the structure of that should be looked at because if you look at it the last few years, teams are just trying to navigate themselves through it, just keep their status. 'So maybe split it up into different groups where you're guaranteed to get maybe three or four games. And if you want to progress, then you keep your foot down. If you don't, you're happy enough.' While very much in favour of all counties hurling into June, as articulated above, he's not in favour of diluting the jeopardy of the provincial round-robins by allowing more than three teams progress. 'This time of the year when teams start getting knocked out, particularly in Munster, there's always a shout to say 'why are they gone' and 'why are they still in it' and whatever. That's the way it's been orchestrated and that's the way it has been, so you've just got to soak it up.'
