Editorial: Time to rally around

There’s no worse feeling than failing to perform in the moments that matter most.

And being there before can make it worse - you truly know what’s at stake and what can be lost. I have huge sympathy for the Cork hurlers and management after last Sunday’s second half disaster.

It was a huge shock and unexpected. The first half had gone well although some of the seeds of Cork’s destruction were sown then. At half-time, Cork were up by six points having scored 1-16 while not playing very well. In hindsight, Tipp had a lot of bad misses in the first half which we couldn’t rely on occurring again. Tipp bottled up our full forward line in the main and stopped good ball getting into them. The Cork half forward line had done well. But it didn’t continue.

A confession; I missed the start of the second half. I was out playing hurling with my son at half-time and I missed 5 or 6 minutes after the resumption. By the time I returned, Cork’s lead was almost wiped out and a few minutes later, it was. Cork couldn’t get momentum while nearly everything Tipp hit seemed to go perfectly. We had no momentum and we couldn’t make use of the breaks we got. The disallowed Tipp goal seemed important at the time - surely that would snap Cork out of their lethargy?

I didn’t watch any post-game coverage or the Sunday Game. I haven’t read any post-game analysis. I just don’t have the heart for it. And I don’t have to face it. But the players and management do. They have to face this for months.

Losing the biggest games is very tough. And there’s no hiding place as a Cork hurler. They have to face up to what happened in that second half and how they couldn’t wrest control of the game back. The manner of Sunday’s defeat will leave far more scars than the narrow extra-time loss to Clare 12 months ago.

There are many reasons for not performing but not caring enough is certainly not one of them. That team has been putting in thousands of hours to be the best they can be. They have an elite mindset and losing in this manner will hurt them so deeply.

I can understand why they didn’t want to endure a homecoming even though they have given us so many good times during what was a great season despite the final. It would have been so painful for them to have to stand up there and try to put on a brave face when all they want to do is be in private. Their job is to try to get over the loss, learn from it and come back next year. Our job as supporters is to rally around them, let them know how much we appreciate them and follow them again next year. Thanks again to Pat Ryan, his management team and those magnificent players.