Sometimes you can watch an average team play football and just sit back and wonder what the difference really is.
They could be solid the whole way through, they could actually be a decent side all-round but what is it that makes a good team stand out from an average team?
To win a game – in any sport – you need to find a way to create an imbalance. Somebody needs to do something out there to cause a disadvantage in the other team so yours can take advantage.
We used to preach at underage football – before blanket defences seeped their way down there too – for forwards to take on their man. In a 6 v 6 scenario, all it took was for one defender to be beaten and the whole thing would open up before you. Suddenly you have 6 v 5 – a man over. An advantage.
All it takes is for one man to go at his marker. Sometimes all it takes is one time.
It comes with confidence though. It comes with attackers actually willing to risk losing possession so they can get past a tackler – more importantly, a manager actually allowing them to do that. But it also comes with a traditional man-on-man back line. And that’s what Cork could have against Kerry on Sunday for their Munster final clash (throw-in: 2pm).
A lot of praise comes Jim McGuinness’ way for reinventing the game (praise or flack, it depends on whether you’re actually analysing the football or just whinging about it) but Cork won an All-Ireland with their running game before the Donegal man was even managing his county seniors.
In terms of using every inch of the field, in terms of making it small for the opposition attack and making it damn tiring for their chasing defenders, the Rebels wrote the book on end-to-end football.
They’re still as fluid as they were five years ago and they still possess that same energetic style that propelled them into the top bracket of football teams in the country.
Now, they have Colm O’Neill, ever-growing, ever-improving. Now, their running game allows them to work the ball into positions to pick passes into their rotating inside line and they have the likes of Kerrigan and the O’Driscoll quartet and Mark Collins to either destroy the space that they’re given themselves, or draw a sweeper to them and create space for their men inside.
They might get the space for themselves against Kerry on Sunday.
If Peter Crowley is allowed to, he’ll sit and clean up all sorts of nonsense inside his own 45′ and the returning Donnchadh Walsh will be back and forward like nobody’s business in a typical 70 minutes of industry if he’s deployed from the start by Eamonn Fitzmaurice. The smart money suggests that he should be anyway.
But Cork’s runners will cause them problems and they won’t let them sit unattended.
Early on against Tipperary, the old ‘take on your man’ trick was as visible as ever against Kerry.
You beat a defender and you’re 2-on-1 inside The Kingdom’s 21′. And Tipp duly hit the net.
You beat a defender and you’re 3-on-2 inside The Kingdom’s 21′. And Tipp duly hit the net.
But with Cork’s runners, you don’t just have faster, more direct players designed to play that way, you have a wave of them coming at you with every single attack.
And that’s not just one of their strengths, it’s also how they manage to isolate their go-to man, Colm O’Neill.
If Mark Ó Sé thinks he’ll have enough bother manning the Rebel full forward, Cork will make damn sure that they draw the likes of Crowley and Young and Walsh out to their runners and leave space inside.
One of O’Neill’s scores against Clare took 10 passes to reach him.
The two-man full forward line breaks off with O’Connor off on what is essentially a decoy run (O’Neill is circled). More importantly though, the attack is about to have four extra forwards inside the opposition 45′.
Clare manage to filter numbers back but they’re kept occupied by Cork’s swarm of runners and they’re taken inside. O’Neill, meanwhile, loops out to find a new pocket of space and he swings over.
Either he’s on early and you’re left isolated with one of the best forwards in Ireland. Either his runners will draw defenders and get him the space and then the ball. Or the runners will just go at you themselves and leave men over like Tipp did to raise two green flags against Kerry.
Cork are underdogs for this game – big time. Kerry have more dimensions to their attack – they actually have every single dimension available in the game and they have subs that would scare the living daylights out of any starting back line.
They’ll probably eventually have too much firepower for the old enemy in this provincial final but Cork aren’t going to war unarmed.
They’re coming with their own game plan and their own way of giving their best marksman the space and time he needs to hurt The Kingdom.
They’re coming with a chance.
