Anthony Daly: You'd have to be ultra-impressed with Cork. They'll struggle to keep a lid on the hype

After my column here on Saturday, I got more than a small bit of stick from the Cork crowd, who, in effect were accusing me of trying to set them up ahead of their trip to Ennis on Easter Sunday.

It wasn’t just online because I got it from a couple of mates from Cork too via text messages. ‘Hi Dalo boy, are you trying to give us big heads ahead of running into yere boys?’ In their eyes, my words were a form of loading the guns for the impending ambush. The Cork crowd must think I’m cutting down bushes around Clarecastle to help block the road into town on April 20th.

I’m not. I can’t find my slash-hook and hatchet at the moment – only joking. Seriously, I can only go on what I have been watching. And from what I have seen to date in this league, how could you not be ultra-impressed with Cork? What I said on Saturday was more or less what happened on later on that evening. How is that loading bullets into a chamber?

Cork people can say all they want that I’m setting them up but what else do they expect me to say? If I was giving them stick, they’d be saying that I was running them down or not giving them more credit than they deserve. I’m just calling it as I see it. And the evidence is pretty obvious.

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Cork are gunning teams down because they’re blowing holes in the opposition with goals. Hoggie and Brian Hayes are nearly unmarkable inside in the full-forward line with their movement and class, especially with the quality of ball going in.

And yet Cork showed again, especially with Tim O’Mahony and Darragh Fitzgibbon’s goals, how they can hurt teams from any area of the pitch, of how they can run over teams and carve them open with their pace and power and intent.

Fitzgibbon was really effective at centre-forward while Shane Barrett was excellent on the wing. Yet Cork were impressive all over the pitch, especially in defence. Galway were wasteful with the wind. They didn’t work hard enough but there was almost a sense that, no matter what Galway did, or how much fight they brought to the Páirc, there was only going to be one outcome.

There will still have been a lot of anxiety around the Cork camp over the weekend around the knee injury to Hayes. It didn’t look good. I would be fearful he has done serious damage, but I really hope Brian hasn’t.

I wasn’t in Thurles on Saturday evening so I had to rely on the dulcet tones of Syl O’Connor and Tommy Guilfoyle on Clare FM to keep me informed and up to date on what was happening.

Clare were understrength but it is another worry for Brian Lohan that Clare led by 1-14 to 0-9 and only managed another 0-4 over the guts of the last half an hour as Tipp sped past them.

The only allowance you can make – and it’s not an excuse – is that Clare probably trained savagely hard last week because they aren’t going to curtail their schedule ahead of a league game that meant nothing. Clare got more mileage into the legs of key players – especially Conor Cleary, who scored a point, John Conlon and vitally David McInerney. So was that not more important than getting a result?

Most people I spoke to that were there felt that Clare at least deserved a draw but Clare needed more than just a result. The fact that they didn’t just adds to the concern running through the psyche of the Clare public at the moment. And that’s being genuine too – it’s not another rocket being stored on the stockpile.

No matter what I say anyway, Cork are going to find it hard to keep a lid on the hype. I’m not adding to the hype. Cork are doing that themselves by playing as well as they are. And they’re not just winning – they’re blowing teams out of the water. How do you row that back? You can’t. Nobody in Cork wants them to. So how is a humble opinion going to derail that train?

When it comes to developing a winning habit, I often think of John Maughan when he came to Clare football. Maughan trained the boys savage hard but that wasn’t the sole reason Clare won a memorable Munster title in 1992 when beating Kerry – they had just got used to winning games in the league.

I think Liam Cahill is off that mindset now, even if Tipp – and Waterford – were always able to win games in the spring under Cahill. Tipp may not be winning games as impressively as Cork, but they’re winning them. And they have won more games – five out of six – than Cork have managed to date. Cork will be favourites for the final but that has to count for something. Especially with Tipp having already beaten Cork.

Much the same as Clare, I’m sure Limerick had a tough training week last week. Yet that still won’t have been deemed a good enough reason for the poverty of Limerick’s display on Saturday night. When was the last time Limerick hit 1-12 in a league game under John Kiely?

John wasn’t really interested in reaching a league final – no matter what he says – but he’ll still have been troubled by the last two performances.

I said here on Saturday that this was a great game for Keith Rossiter and Wexford to get, and they really went after that opportunity, fully grasping it. They would have won by far more if they’d converted even half the chances they left after them.

I’m not sure if Wexford stayed in Limerick on Saturday, possibly even going for a few beers, maybe even having a light training session yesterday morning. But whenever that bus went back to the south-east, you can only imagine how happy and excited everyone on it was.

They’re in right good shape now heading into the championship. It’s fair to say too that Wexford probably wouldn’t have been relegated if they weren’t so decimated with injuries early in the campaign. They have shown fight and form and will be many people’s fancy now to make that top three in Leinster.

Wexford’s form has added to the intrigue now of what is bubbling up to be an epic Leinster championship. I’m not hyping up Offaly – I don’t want Offaly people sending me messages now either – but I’d be fairly confident that they will win a Leinster title in the coming years.

Is that an outlandish statement given that they’ve only been operating from Division 1B? No. Their workrate, method of play, even their attitude, was all first class. Waterford are a seasoned outfit and Offaly could have possibly beaten them in their home patch if they hadn’t been reduced to 14 men.

Before anyone thinks I mean anything different by this, I don’t – especially when it comes to head injuries – but I still think that referees are going to have to adopt a different approach when it comes to how they look at every single connection made with the head, or connection that looks close to the head.

To me, James Mahon’s red card was not a sending off. Gavin Fives came up from picking up the ball but, as he came up, he realised he was about to be tackled by two Offaly players, one of whom was Mahon.

He led with his shoulder but he was coming from a low position after picking the ball. It wasn’t as if Mahon had lined him up. He was trying to make a shoulder-on-shoulder challenge, and while it was a shoulder-on-chest, it wasn’t a sending off.

It ruined the game. There was also a huge contrast in how Johnny Murphy refereed the match in comparison to how he officiated the All-Ireland final last year. It was like chalk and cheese.

Johnny was hunting physios off the field anytime they came near the pitch. Yellow cards were being doled out like confetti. Stephen Bennett almost got a second yellow at one stage for tipping back the ball half a metre from where Offaly were awarded the free. I thought for a second that it was the new football rules, and was nearly expecting Johnny to move the free forward by 50 metres.

It was a pity the game ended the way it did for Offaly but their honesty and endeavour for the rest of the match will still give Johnny Kelly and his management huge confidence ahead of the league final, and heading into the championship.

For a team that had to win to make absolute certainty of reaching a league final, I thought Waterford were lacklustre for long periods. Waterford could really do with the final, especially when they don’t play on the opening championship weekend, and I think it will be a really good game.

I’m really looking forward now to a double-header, wherever that is – Cork or Croke Park. If it is Croke Park, I hope it’s a triple header, even if that may seem unrealistic on a Saturday, with the Division 2 final between Down and Kildare.

They deserve that stage as much as the other four teams do.

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