William O'Donoghue of Limerick in action against Ger Millerick of Cork during the Munster GAA Hurling Senior Championship Semi-Final match between Cork and Limerick at Semple Stadium in Thurles, Tipperary.
Sunday, August 22
2021 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship Final
Limerick v Cork, Croke Park, 3.30pm (RTE & Sky Sports)
It’s tempting to pitch Sunday’s All-Ireland Senior Hurling Final as a duel between one gladiator wielding a broadsword and another a rapier.
Limerick hold the broadsword. The most physically powerful team in the country, they can cut you open with sweeping deliveries into ball-winning target-men like Seamus Flanagan and Aaron Gillane.
Cork hold the rapier. The fastest team in the country, their darting runs from deep and quick wrists of assassins like Patrick Horgan and Jack O’Connor will make you bleed.
Broad generalisations of course because Limerick don’t lack for technical hurlers themselves and Cork have men with broad shoulders too, but there’s truth in them nonetheless.
If Limerick make this match a cramped, physically abrasive contest, they’ll surely overpower Cork.
Whereas if the Rebels can goad Limerick into an end to end scorefest that makes the most of every square yard of the pitch, then their chances of pulling off an upset will rise significantly.
Limerick's sheer physical power combined with their superbly organised defensive structure makes them very difficult to play against.
“Run to daylight”, was the famous philosophy of legendary American Football Coach, Vince Lombardi, and it’s one that applies equally well to all field sports where the creation and subsequent exploitation of space is usually the key to unlocking opposition defences.
And when you watch how this current Cork hurling team plays the game, Lombardi’s maxim comes easily to mind.
They suck opposition players in with their short-passing game. When a pocket of space then opens up, they launch off the shoulder runners into them with well-timed passes.
Skill and bravery creates the daylight, and then the natural speed of so many of their players is the key to exploiting it.
What makes Sunday’s All-Ireland Final so fascinating is that Limerick are better than any other team in the country at pulling the blinds and eliminating that daylight.
Their forwards press so aggressively that generating the initial momentum or tackle-break you need to create over-loads for your running game is very difficult.
Cork take chances running the ball from deep and were turned over on a number of occasions by Kilkenny in the All-Ireland semi-final. Limerick will have taken note, and are capable of doing even more damage in this area that the Cats did.
Even when you do manage to beat the fierce initial press from Limerick, your next challenge is to negotiate the formidable athleticism of midfield duo, William O’Donoghue and Darragh O’Donovan, which is never an easy task.
Perhaps trickiest of all, though, is finding and exploiting some daylight in the part of the pitch where it is prized most – between the opposition half-back and full-back lines.
If you can launch a player at pace into space here, which is what Cork have consistently done all year, then a goal-scoring chance usually beckons.
Cork will hope the speed of players like Jack O'Connor will be the key to unlocking the Limerick defence.
But Limerick rarely allow much daylight to break in this part of the field. Centre-back Declan Hannon sits deep, right in front of his full-back line, and is a very effective fire-blanket at snuffing out such goal-chances.
Tipperary’s Jason Forde proved in the first half of the Munster Final that Hannon’s habit of sitting deep can leave some space for point-scoring in front of him, but if Cork are to pull off a shock in this All-Ireland Final they’ll most likely need to score at least two goals.
Limerick know that’s what they’re coming for, so expect O’Donoghue and O’Donovan to also drop a little deeper than usual to clutter their own half of the field and lay all sorts of land-mines for Cork’s running game.
The reigning champions did it very effectively when they kept a clean sheet in the semi-final against Waterford, and manager John Kiely has made it clear they’ll be looking to bring the same method and physicality to their defending again on Sunday.
“It’s something we’ve worked hard on this summer,” he says. “All the teams are trying to engineer more goal scoring chances, and teams are working harder to deny those goal chances.
“Some of those pieces of defending were exemplary in terms of the timing, the technical ability to deliver it, and the collective unit working together. One player would do one piece then it rolls over to the next guy, and the next guy.
“For me that’s the most pleasing part, that it’s a collective effort as well as the individual brilliance.”
“We have worked hard on it in training. Paul Kinnerk puts in a huge piece on it over the summer and the layers have responded.
“We’ve seen some fantastic examples of brilliant defending this year from a number of teams, but we’re very proud of our team in terms of the work they’ve done on defence.”
Limerick manager, John Kiely, right, and coach Paul Kinnerk pictured after their 2021 Munster SHC Final victory over Tipperary.
What makes this Limerick team such a formidable adversary is that they do everything well.
The huge work-ethic that Kiely speaks about makes them defensive monsters without the ball.
And when they have it themselves, then their stick-work, vision, passing over all ranges, and clinical finishing make them capable of ripping teams apart in double-quick time.
We’ve seen it for periods of matches so far this year such as the third quarter against Tipperary in the Munster Final and the second quarter of the All-Ireland semi-final against Waterford.
If they produce that level of hurling for even three quarters of the All-Ireland Final never mind the whole game, then they’ll be very hard to beat.
As for Cork, they’ve been running very effectively to daylight all year, but will they be able to find those sunny spaces when Limerick pull down the shutters on Sunday?
It’s going to be fascinating to find out.
