Cork snuff out Clare's early fire

Cinematically-speaking all the best excitement went into the trailer. The main feature was dull by comparison. There will be spoutings of sanctimony and belts of the crozier all week concerning the scenes which preceded yesterday's game in Thurles but for those present the main concern was that the match which followed failed to live up to the scrap which preceded it.

For some reason Cork and Clare were unleashed on to the field at precisely the same moment yesterday in Semple Stadium. That doesn't excuse what happened but it goes some way to explaining it. As is traditional when these skirmishes occur most of those involved with either team were absorbed in other stuff when some fighting broke out in the tunnel so details are sketchy.

"No I didn't see that at all," said Clare manager Tony Considine. "I was in the dressingroom at that stage. I didn't see it. I was last out."

"I was last one out of the tunnel," said Gerald McCarthy of Cork. "I didn't see anything. I met my son coming out of the tunnel and he called me over. I didn't see anything. I know a few players were involved in some shemozzle. Maybe we'll know a little later on."

Anyway, the fighting spilled out on to the field where it continued spasmodically for some time much to the surprise of the guard of honour of juvenile players who were greeting the players as they arrived.

The teams eventually released their hands from each others' throats and went their own separate ways. Yes, it was apocalyptically bad and children were present but nothing that happened afterwards was half as exciting. If Clare had come to town intent on dragging Cork into a dog-fight they had shown their hand too early. The referee, Pat O'Connor of Limerick, called the captains together and warned them of the consequences of any similar outbreaks during play. The two sides looked chastened. They'd fought the law but the law won.

In the ensuing 70 minutes, Cork digested Clare as steadily as a python swallowing a mongoose, winning 1-18 to 1-11. It took some time to achieve that but there was never any doubt about who would be dining and who would be dinner.

You have to go back to the revolution years of the 1990s, to 1998 to be precise, to find the last time Clare and Cork reversed their position on the food chain. This was the fifth occasion since then that Cork have tucked into Clare and their third year in a row to do so. Such is the difference wrought in the personality of Clare hurling in a short space of time it is difficult to believe it is just two years since Clare ran Cork to a point in the All-Ireland semi-final.

The giants of Clare hurling have retired or (in one celebrated case) been ushered into something like retirement since then.

Whatever about the whereabouts of Davy Fitz, seeing Clare yesterday with just one Lohan, with no Seanie and with Tony Griffin off on a bicycle somewhere, it was difficult to imagine how they were ever going to find a way to compete. Clare needed to make provision back when those men were at their peak. The cupboard isn't quite bare yet but the shelves aren't groaning with talent.

Cork, on the other hand, have found themselves in the unusual circumstance of needing change merely for the sake of it. For the last few years the men who lay out the team sheets in programmes have been able to store the Cork lineout on a button of the computer for inputting in a microsecond. Yesterday Gerald McCarthy leaned on a few younger players and found none of them wanting. Cork are at the foothills of the championship summer but have the solidity and know-how to go to the altitude when they want to.

Yesterday's game was, as several of the participants conceded afterwards, flat but tough. Cork in flashes gave hints of the higher hurling of which they are capable. For a long time, though, having made a decent start when they rat-a-tatted off four points without reply, they just hurled within themselves, absorbing the rather more blunt, physical style of the Claremen. That energetic start also included a fine goal chance when Pa Cronin's high ball was batted down into the path of Kieran Murphy (of Sarsfield's - a late replacement for Timmy McCarthy) whose shot came back off the crossbar.

It was that sort of day for Clare. They made a run at Cork in the second half, narrowing a gap which had grown to 11 points during a spell early in the second half when young Cronin contributed 1-1. Clare pulled a goal back but Cork could be forgiven for looking like men who had seen it all before.

Cork play Waterford in the same venue in three weeks. Things can only get better.