All-Ireland SHC quarter-final: Cork 0-22 Galway 2-28
ANTHONY CUNNINGHAM'S Galway thumped Cork at Semple Stadium on Sunday to set up a mouthwatering All-Ireland semi-final clash with Tipperary on August 16.
The Westerners were on fire, with 11 players on the scoresheet, as they sent Cork bouncing out of the Championship less than 24 hours after their footballers suffered a similar fate.
Galway racked up 2-28 and, yet remarkably, they also registered 23 wides over the 70 minutes, with Joe Canning responsible for nine alone. They could conceivably have hit 2-40 and Munster champions Tipperary are in for a stern test of their credentials at GAA HQ.
Johnny Glynn scored a wonder goal within a minute to set Galway on their way and the victory was bookended by a goal from Conor Whelan, the 18-year-old debutant parachuted in from left field to start.
It was a miserable day for Cork, who lost Damien Cahalane to a red card and Cormac Murphy to a knee injury.
Galway were four points clear at half-time, 1-15 to 0-14, as Glynn’s stunning goal after just 52 seconds helped to separate the sides. Glynn took off on a mazy run that carried him 50 metres towards the Cork goal and didn’t stop until he had buried a shot past Anthony Nash. The highlight of Glynn’s run was a flick over the head of Cork sweeper Mark Ellis as he came across to apply pressure and, when the ball dropped, the Ardrahan powerhouse applied the finish.
Galway added a point from Jason Flynn before Cork opened their account in the fifth minute through Conor Lehane. Despite playing with the breeze, there was always a feeling that Cork were hanging on.
Galway found scores that bit easier to come by and while the sweeper had worked to good effect in Cork’s victories over Wexford and Clare, they looked more vulnerable defensively here.
Cathal Mannion picked off five points from play in the first half alone for Galway, drifting around the half-forward line to telling effect. With Mannion vacating his nominal corner-forward position, plenty of space opened up for Galway to exploit and by half-time, all six of their starting forwards and both midfielders had registered scores. But Galway let themselves down by registering nine first half wides, with Canning responsible for five of those.
There were more to follow in the second half, but Galway still kept the scoreboard ticking over with regularity.
Despite this loss, Cork boss Jimmy Barry-Murphy remained defiant at full-time, and appears determined to see out the final year of his three-year stint at the helm.
He said: “We were accused earlier in the year of having no tactics, then we tried a different system of defensive play.
“Every game you play, you try to assess what’s good for the team and the panel of players available to you. As I said, the lads have given us everything over the last four years, we’ve been competing at the highest level but just fallen short.”
When asked about his intentions for next year, JBM replied: “I can’t wait for next year. I believe there’s a great future for the Cork players. I’ll leave it at what I said there now.”
Satisfied Galway boss Cunningham acknowledged that despite the big nature of this win, there is plenty of room for improvement.
He said: “We’d probably be disappointed with the number of wides we had – it’s good to have something to work on for the next day.
“We’ll need, in a closer game, those to go over. We had to weather a storm there after half-time when Cork came flying back into it but it was always going to be a high-scoring game against Cork.
“That’s been the history of the clashes and it was no different today.”
Galway hit back from their Leinster final loss to Kilkenny with an emphatic display. After losing to the Cats, Cunningham remarked to his Kilkenny counterpart Brian Cody that he would see him again before the season is out.
That could yet turn out to be the case and Cunningham added: “What we said after the Leinster match was there wasn’t a whole pile wrong with our performance.
“A seven-point defeat, is only three or four scores we should have defended. We coughed up a lot of easy points against Kilkenny and we had three or four points that we should have scored so it wasn’t that hard to get that point across.”
Cunningham also hailed the impact of Glynn, who committed a faux-pas on live TV. Responding to a question about Galway "having only one forward" before this fixture, Glynn described the assertion as "f***ing bulls**t”.
Glynn’s response hinted at a deep-rooted determination to finally get Galway over the line after almost 27 years without an All-Ireland series crown. And Cunningham said: “Johnny is an example as to where and what we need in a player to develop in the gym over the winter or what the development programmes should be producing.”
Cork: A Nash; S O’Neill, B Murphy, S McDonnell; A Walsh (0-1), M Ellis, C Murphy (0-1); D Cahalane, D Kearney (0-2); B Lawton (0-1), P Cronin, B Cooper; C Lehane (0-3), S Harnedy (0-3), P Horgan (0-9, 0-7 frees, 0-1 65); Subs: J Coughlan for Cronin (h-t), L McLoughlin for Murphy (44), A Cadogan (0-1) for Lawton (47), P O’Sullivan (0-1) for Cooper (56).
Galway: C Callanan; J Coen, J Hanbury, P Mannion; A Harte (0-2), I Tannian, Daithí Burke; A Smith (0-1), David Burke (0-2); C Whelan (1-2), C Donnellan (0-2), J Glynn (1-2); J Flynn (0-3), J Canning (0-5, 0-2 frees, 0-1 65, 0-1 sl), C Mannion (0-7); Subs: J Cooney (0-1) for David Burke (h-t), D Collins for Donnellan (57), G Lally for Tannian (60), F Moore for Smith (65), N Healy (0-1) for Glynn (67).
Referee: J Owens (Wexford)
