Brolly brutally blames Dónal Óg for Cork collapse and ‘destroying the morale’ of county

Joe Brolly: Tell us what you really think, fella

The Cork post-mortem will be long and painful following their crushing defeat in the All-Ireland SHC final by Tipperary on Sunday.

But the analysis of Cork’s defeat perhaps won’t get as brutal as Joe Brolly’s assessment this week, where he blamed Dónal Óg Cusack for “destroying the morale” of Cork in the 2000s, and that having a knock-on impact still today.

Cork are without an All-Ireland since 2005, losing six times in the final during that period, and Brolly rubbished comparisons with the Mayo side who have lost 11 finals since their last Sam Maguire in 1951.

Speaking on the Free State podcast with Dion Fanning, Brolly said: “Cork have never recovered from Dónal Óg Cusack's destruction of the morale within County Cork in general. They never recovered. Look at the evidence. They were a team. They were a team that were renowned as the rebels throughout Ireland.

“They had given us some of the greatest hurlers that had ever played the game. They had great football teams, and then all of a sudden, they became like a trade union with Dónal Óg, the senior sort of trade union chair, shuttling in and out of meetings with the GAA. Looking for money, striking. You'll recall the strike, which was just the f****** most grotesque thing I've ever seen in my life as a GAA person.

Brolly added on the Mayo comparison: “This is not one bit like Mayo, where you could say: ‘We have lost an epic game by 1 point. We are very, very close. We will redouble our efforts.’ That was a constant thing, lose a replay against a great Kerry team, lose a replay against the great Dublin team, 2015.

"2014 against Kerry in the semi-final, where all the time they were playing brilliantly in big games and losing by a point. And the question was, why can they not close off that last five minutes? Because they were always there with five minutes to go.

“This is different. I mean, this is carnage. This is a f****** wasteland of dreams. The first thing the Cork players will be saying this morning, I think will be - and it'll take them a while to come out of the numbness and genuine f****** horror of this - will be: ‘What the fuck was our management doing?’

"So now you've got this dynamic of: ‘Can we trust this management? Is this management at the level that is required for us?’”