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Irish Times
7 hours ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
Darragh McCarthy's redemption song soundtracks extraordinary Tipperary All-Ireland victory over Cork
All-Ireland SHC Final: Tipperary 3-27 Cork 1-18 There had been much emphasis on how much Cork would benefit from hard-earned lessons in previous All-Ireland finals and by half-time, all that adversity looked like it had been well invested. A Shane Barrett goal in injury-time put them six points ahead going in for the break. To most present, that was enough to suggest that the match, if not over, was on a course that would be hard to alter. Beware easy consensus. Former Tipperary player John O'Dwyer was doing a spot of punditry at half-time and breezily asserted that he could see his county getting a couple of goals and winning. Bravado, surely? In a tumultuous second half, Bubbles was proved a prophet and Cork's fervent hopes of ending 20 years of drawing blanks and taking Liam MacCarthy home to Leeside. READ MORE What actually happened defied explanation, let alone foresight. Tipperary simply took the match away from their opponents and refused to yield control for the rest of the final. [ Tipperary player ratings: Darragh McCarthy shines on famous day at Croke Park Opens in new window ] [ Cork player ratings: Shane Barrett starts strong but too many fail to reach final crescendo Opens in new window ] The inspirational Ronan Maher, who quelled Cork's leading Hurler of the Year contender Brian Hayes and moved himself to the top of the betting, ended up lifting the Liam MacCarthy Cup, and in a moving speech referencing their late team-mate Dillon Quirke. There were so many heroes on the Tipp team in an outstanding collective display. Nineteen-year-old Darragh McCarthy has had a baptism of fire this year. Brought in at the start of the league, he was entrusted with free-taking duties and broke off to play in the All-Ireland winning under-20 team as a warm-up for senior championship. Tipperary's Ronan Maher celebrates the final whistle. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho Two high-profile red cards had raised question marks over his temperament, or at least his tackle technique after loose striking saw him sent off for the last 10 minutes of the semi-final against Kilkenny. This weekend he answered any doubts about his readiness for the top level of the game. Fifteen attempts at scores yielded 1-13 – just one wide from play in the second half spoiled a pristine return – and his impeccable free-taking, nine from nine, marked a monumental display in a first senior All-Ireland final. It included ice-cold composure for a penalty strike after John McGrath was taken down in the 55th minute. [ The anatomy of a collapse – how Cork managed to lose the second half by 3-14 to 0-2 Opens in new window ] For the second All-Ireland decider running, Cork were outscored three goals to one and undone by that concession. In the second half they were outscored 3-14 to 0-2. Tipps full forwards weren't as celebrated in the raising of green flags as their opponents coming into the final but they had shown plenty of lethal intent along the way. Four goals saw off Kilkenny in the semi-final, which mightn't have equalled Cork's seven against Dublin but each of them had to be chiselled out of a tough surface and helped to turn around the match. Ditto, the four they dug out in Ennis during a vital Munster set-to with their All-Ireland predecessors Clare. Tipperary's Ronan Maher lifts the Liam MacCarthy Cup. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho This hadn't looked altogether likely in the first half, although in a portent of what was to come Jason Forde got a touch to a long-distance free from Eoghan Connolly to send it to the net, but referee Liam Gordon disallowed the goal for a square-ball infraction. Otherwise, the Cork full backs were well in command. They were playing with the advantage of a big wind, which complicated scoring into the northern end. Tipperary had nine wides during the first half and although shot selection and execution were questionable in some cases, the second half cast it in a new light – as had been the case with the Donegal footballers a week previously. The leakage of scoring chances was frustrating for Liam Cahill's team because tactically and individually they had done a fine job in restricting Cork's feared full forwards. Willie Connors dropped to wing back, where he had a superb match at the heart of nearly everything disruptive, liberating Bryan O'Mara as the plus-one defender, which he executed to perfection. Unlike the Páirc Uí Chaoimh matches when Cork scored seven goals in the league final and Munster round robin, there was no easy space to be exploited. Cork's Patrick Horgan. Photograph: Bryan Keane/Inpho Sam O'Farrell came to centrefield with Darragh McCarthy floating out from the full forward line. Ironically, they might well have run the same playbook in May but for the latter's red card before the match started. Cork manager Pat Ryan pointed out that even if his full forwards were on tighter rations, the half forwards were able to take advantage. Diarmuid Healy and Barrett helped themselves to 1-6 and there were six points in it at half-time, 1-16 to 0-13. Lively scores, picked off to keep their opponents under pressure. Declan Dalton threw in another of his huge frees. After a sequence of feisty Tipp defence in the 21st minute, Patrick Horgan was on hand to loft over the squirming ball for a three-point lead. [ Liam Cahill: 'Fortune favours the brave and our hurlers were really brave today' Opens in new window ] A mark of the current Tipp team, as rebuilt by Cahill, is a refusal to throw in their cards. They kept the scores down and swallowed the frustration of missing so many of their own chances. Maybe the first sign of Cork's unease came when Horgan hit a straightforward free wide just after half-time. The referral to Hawk-Eye only prolonged the awkwardness. This was followed by a rallying point from Conor Stakelum, who had provided three similar scores when the semi-final had not been going well. But this was more than token defiance. It started a run on the scoreboard that Cork could not arrest. An unanswered 1-5 convulsed the match. Andrew Ormond, quiet in the first half, popped up with two in rapid succession. Tipperary's John McGrath celebrates scoring a goal. Photograph: Laszlo Geczo/Inpho The real instrument of destruction though was John McGrath, whose return to form this year was such a feature of Tipperary's All-Ireland run. Capitalising on a Jake Morris shot that came back off the post, he calmly set about regathering the ball among defenders and making room for a shot to the net. Subdued in the first half, he was now rampant and taken down for the critical event of the match, a penalty that saw McGrath's marker Eoin Downey sent off on a second yellow card in the 53rd minute. McCarthy slammed it to Collins's left. Six minutes later McGrath had his seventh goal of the championship, a steely, eyes-on-the-prize jump for another booming Eoghan Connolly delivery and a touch to the net, uninhibited by what might happen at the hands of converging defenders. A fitting grace note for a match that had long been decided. TIPPERARY: R Shelly (0-1); R Doyle (0-1), E Connolly (0-1), M Breen; C Morgan, R Maher (capt), B O'Mara; W Connors (0-1), C Stakelum (0-1); J Morris (0-2), A Ormond (0-2), S O'Farrell; D McCarthy (1-13, 1-0 pen, 8f, 1'65), J McGrath (2-2), J Forde (0-2). Subs: S Kennedy for O'Mara (50 mins), A Tynan for Morgan (56), N McGrath (0-1) for O'Farrell (60), D Stakelum for C Stakelum, O O'Donoghue for Ormond (both 66). CORK: P Collins; N O'Leary (0-1), E Downey, S O'Donoghue; C Joyce, R Downey (capt), M Coleman; T O'Mahony, D Fitzgibbon (0-2); D Healy (0-3), S Barrett (1-4), D Dalton (0-1f); P Horgan (0-4, 3f), A Connolly (0-1), B Hayes (0-1). Subs: S Harnedy (0-1) for Dalton (44 mins), D Cahalane for Healy (56), C Lehane for Horgan (58), S Kingston for Connolly (65), T O'Connell for O' Mahony (67). Referee: L Gordon (Galway).
Irish Examiner
2 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Cork boss Pat Ryan: 'You have to win All-Irelands' to succeed as manager
Pat Ryan was given a three-year term. Tomorrow is the final game of that term. Let's go right back to the eve of his opening game in the opening year of that term. In January 2023, the new Cork manager was asked if his reign would be deemed a failure should Liam MacCarthy not return to Leeside at some point before close of business this summer. 'It would be a failure, yeah,' he replied. Are they words he still stands by? 'I would. I won't back away from stuff I've said before. You'll be judged by other people, but my judgement as a Cork person, as a person who's played, as a person who's watched games and been involved in going to matches when we won All-Irelands in the 80s and 90s, that's what's expected,' he reaffirmed. 'That's the expectation when you take on the job, that you're going to win All-Irelands. If you don't, is failure the right word? It's probably a harsh word at times. But it's true, to be honest, because you have to win All-Irelands if you're going to be the Cork manager. You have to win All-Irelands. It's as simple as that. You don't shy away from that.' And neither does he shy away from the players' job to honour the red shirt given the connotations it carries. While so much of the focus over the past fortnight has been on match specifics, Ryan has not been reluctant to lean into tradition, what the shirt represents, and doing the shirt justice on Sunday. 'That's the standard. That's what we have to live to is what the Cork jersey represents to the people of Cork. Fellas might say tis cocky or arrogant, we haven't won an All-Ireland in 20 years, but I'm talking about my generation. That's the way I grew up. The Cork jersey has to mean something to everyone, every time you put it on. 'The players I grew up idolising in the 80s, there was no soccer, no rugby. The Teddy McCarthys, the Tomás Muls, the Jim Cashmans, the Jimmy Barry Murphys, the Seánie O'Learys, they were gods. "And there's an expectation that we wear the jersey as well as they did, and do we lean into it? Yeah, you bet your life we do. Look, it's a good thing to come from. 'I listened to a Bernard Dunne podcast recently and he spoke with James McCarthy about that. James said that when he was with Dublin, there's a way that Dublin should play and there's a way that Dublin should carry themselves, and I just said, 'Jesus, that makes total sense'.' One final new belief of Pat's. Inter-county hurling is a 'grown-ass sport'. Its participants must be thus treated as such. Birth cert details are irrelevant. He eulogised earlier this week on Gary Keegan's value in the one-to-one conversations that he's had with the Cork manager and players. Equally illuminating and equally effective were the one-to-one conversations Ryan had with his players in the downtime after the 2024 season so crushingly concluded and the latest climb began. 'Sometimes you try to be as honest as you can with players and then sometimes you're probably trying not to hurt feelings. "A lot of the players would have come to me and said maybe you just need to be a bit more honest sometimes with us and just tell us what we need to do exactly. 'Sometimes you might be, for want of a better word, pussyfooting around the situation, but it was being a bit more direct. That is something that I've done this year.'
Irish Independent
3 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Independent
John Tarrant: Tipperary have always had a capacity for upsetting Cork's best laid plans
In 1987 Tipperary stole a march on Cork with replay venue and soaked sliotars Cork and Tipperary have served up riveting contests down through the decades, their hurling has fascinated the hurling nation, in days of old, two terrific exponents of the game drove themselves to the tilt in the height of summer action. Next Sunday's ultimate All Ireland prize is massive, the biggest pot of all, favourites Cork facing outsiders Tipperary. Expectations have hit overdrive on Leeside, winning in the manner they did against Dublin in the semi-final sets up Cork for a bid for the Liam MacCarthy Cup to return to Leeside after a 20 year lapse.
The Sun
4 days ago
- Sport
- The Sun
‘We're better equipped' – Ciaran Joyce and Cork are ‘fully ready' for final after last year's heartbreak
CIARÁN Joyce hopes the lessons learned in the 2024 All-Ireland hurling final will stand to Cork as they look to make amends. But with fans on Leeside desperate to see the end of the county's longest ever drought, Joyce feels they cannot afford to be distracted from the task at hand in Sunday's decider against Tipperary. 2 2 Rebels ace Joyce said: 'As young fellas, what you dream of is to play in an All-Ireland final. To be playing there then, it's unreal. 'But you also have to treat it like it's just another game. You can't let the occasion get to you. 'The whole parade and all the side pieces that are different for an All-Ireland final, you can't let these things get to you too. I suppose in the lead-up to the final last year, there was a lot of hype around the place. 'You're trying to keep a lid on it this year and just have laser focus. 'Even with tickets or all this type of stuff, it's just about trying to keep a lid on all of that now. We'll leave my parents to deal with that.' Last year's All-Ireland semi-final win over Limerick was Joyce's first experience of playing in Croke Park. But despite dethroning the then-reigning champions, Cork came up short in their bid for a first Liam MacCarthy Cup since 2005. Reflecting on the one-point extra-time defeat to Clare that followed, the Castlemartyr defender said: 'It was probably one of the most enjoyable matches that I have played in. 'Even though we did lose, just the game itself and the occasion and everything, it was just unreal. I suppose it was all a new experience for me too. 'Easiest interview I've ever had' jokes RTE GAA host after pundits go back and forth before Meath vs Donegal It was my second time only playing at Croke Park and playing in front of big crowds as well, so it was a little bit new to me. 'I suppose the Limerick game was kind of like an All-Ireland final as well. 'But of course as a young fella, you're always learning so the All-Ireland final was no different to that too. 'But I feel like this year we are definitely better equipped. We've been through it all and we're fully ready for it now.' Cork will look to benefit from their recent experience of contesting the All-Ireland final. And they come into the game off the back of a big semi-final win over Dublin. For the majority of the Tipp team that will be looking to deny them, this will be a first brush with the biggest day in the hurling calendar. But when asked if he subscribes to the theory that you must lose one in order to win one, Joyce insisted: 'Oh, no. Definitely not.'
Irish Independent
5 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Independent
Shamrock Rovers sign Callum Honohan, brother of Hoops defender Josh
Callum Honohan has followed in the footsteps of his older brother Josh and departed hometown Cork City for Shamrock Rovers. The 19-year-old, also a defender, came up through the academy on Leeside and made his first-team debut in a Munster Senior Cup tie last year, while he has made the bench once for Ger Nash's side in the league this season. He turned down a professional contract with Cork to make the move to Tallaght.
