Cork hit the ground running to give Tipperary something to think about

Cork 0-26 Tipperary 1-11:Cork overwhelmed Tipperary with the intensity of their play in a surprisingly one-sided league opener before a crowd of 6,381 at Páirc Uí Rinn on Saturday night.

In an extraordinary first half, Tipperary opened and closed the scoring, but Cork registered an astonishing 14 points in between to effectively end the match as a contest.

Tipperary were completely out of sorts in the period, shooting half of their 14 wides, many of them feeble efforts, whereas Cork found the target with relative ease, particularly Patrick Horgan, the outstanding forward on view.

Accuracy apart, however, it was the phenomenal work-rate from midfielders Daniel Kearney and Lorcan McLoughlin through to corner forwards Horgan and Stephen Moylan which rattled Tipperary most of all.

Defenders came under severe pressure when in possession as Cork hunted in groups and Tipperary’s ill-discipline added to their predicament, offering Horgan even more opportunities to stretch the lead.

Cork selector Seanie McGrath revealed coaches Ger Cunningham and Kieran Kingston had been working on this aspect in the build-up to the league.

“We’re only using the template that Tipperary and Kilkenny have brought into hurling in the last few years. They’ve shown defence starts in the corner forward position and we’ve been drilling that into our players,” he said.

Tipperary manager Eamon O’Shea, in charge of his first league encounter, didn’t hide his disappointment at such an inept performance and offered no excuses. “Cork outplayed us. They were outstanding. We weren’t at the races and clearly we’ve a lot of work to do just to stay in the division. Okay we drew the second half, but they were much sharper and a lot more advanced than we were.

“I can’t make any excuses. We’ve trained as normal in recent weeks. A lot of these fellows are five years on the go and quite simply we’ve got to come up with something different.”

Cork grabbed nine points in the opening quarter-hour with fine centre back Christopher Joyce getting in on the act with a magnificent effort from long distance as did McLoughlin with a memorable one-handed flick close to goal.

Losing captain Shane McGrath to a hand injury only added to Tipperary’s miserable night, leaving them to finish with 14 men, having used all their substitutes.

With the majority of the crowd heading for the exits, Eoin Kelly did have the consolation of scoring the only goal with a blistering shot across Anthony Nash to the far corner of the net as the game entered injury-time.