BY JOHNNY CAROLAN
THE biggest difference between Cork’s earlier meetings with Tipperary – apart from Darragh McCarthy’s sending-off in the Munster SHC – was the Premier County’s sweeper system.
Bryan O’Mara, and then Craig Morgan, carried out the role effectively as Cork’s attacking forays were frustrated.
That alone could not explain just how Cork malfunctioned though and manager Pat Ryan was left to try to make sense of it all.
‘Our momentum, our energy, was terrible in the second half and they had all the momentum, they had all the energy,’ he said.
‘They were the crowd that were working the hardest and that's the disappointing thing from our point of view.
‘Obviously, it’s the second All-Ireland in a row that we've lost and we’re really, really disappointed with that second half.
‘We didn't represent ourselves the way we should have represented ourselves, but credit to Tipperary, they came up, you could see they had loads of momentum behind them and they had a lot of good players all over the place.’
Even so, having retired at half-time with a six-point lead, Cork had a platform on which to build.
‘We were a bit disappointed we weren't using the ball well enough on our own puckouts, we weren't using the ball into the midfield a bit more,’ Ryan said.
‘In fairness to Tipperary, they set up well. Obviously, they were trying to negate our full-forward line, but, in fairness, I thought we were working well enough. We'd scored heavily enough on our half-forward line and stuff like that and we were six points up at half-time, so in a really, really good position.
‘They came out and got momentum behind them and we just couldn't wrestle it away. Obviously, there was the ball that John McGrath broke off Patrick [Collins] and then, obviously, the penalty. Instead of being able to go seven points up with Patrick's [Patrick Horgan] free just after half-time and all of a sudden, then you're chasing the game, you're nearly seven or eight points down in the blink of an eye.’
With the pressure on, Cork stopped functioning like a team.
‘In fairness, goals change games,’ Ryan said.
‘They gave them great momentum, the goals that they got, and then, obviously, Eoin [Downey] getting sent off and you’re chasing the game then – we lose our plus-one at the back whereas they can keep their plus-one at the back.
‘You're chasing the game an awful lot and we’re just disappointed with our reaction as well – to only score two points in the second half isn’t good enough from us.
‘I think we probably played a bit more as individuals, that's something we spoke about. Trying to make sure that, when things go against you, you keep playing as a team and keep sticking to the process and keep sticking to what we want to do, those half-balls inside and taking that extra pass.
‘We didn't do it; we had three balls off the post, where we could have carried those balls in and made those scores. Look, at the end of the day, look, it's hard to find bits and pieces when Tipperary just blew us away in the second half.’
