Dogged Offaly make it difficult for 14-man Cork

Cork 2-17 Offaly 2-16:OFFALY BLEW a great chance of toppling Cork in the hurling qualifiers at Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Saturday.

They couldn’t take advantage of the red-carding of home midfielder Pa Cronin after 20 minutes and paid for dreadful shooting in a wind-assisted first-half.

Cork resumed where they had left off the previous week in the 10-goal rout of Laois, Cian McCarthy firing home a goal after just three minutes following a free from John Gardiner.

Slick inter-passing created the second goal for Luke O’Farrell five minutes later after Paudie O’Sullivan did the spade work, but Offaly responded in kind. Shane Dooley’s penetrating run opened up space for Colin Egan to finish impressively.

Cronin’s indiscretion, which means he will miss Cork’s next game on Saturday week, should have boosted Offaly’s prospects, but 11 first-half wides frustrated their attempts at establishing a lead with the wind at their backs. Egan saw a stinging shot crash off the crossbar and Donal Óg Cusack saved well to deny Dooley.

Cork led 2-7 to 1-7 at the break, reshuffling their forces to bring Niall McCarthy to midfield in Cronin’s absence, and they dominated much of the second-half.

The accurate Patrick Horgan punished Offaly with some slick free-taking and points from play.

The Glen Rovers star contributed seven of his 10-point tally with the wind at his back as the O’Connor twins Jerry and Ben also kept the scoreboard ticking over.

Daniel Currams kept Offaly interested with a five-point haul though they were overreliant on Dooley for the rest of their scores.

Cork could never really pull away in front of a crowd of 7,569 but led by four points before a late Dooley ‘65’ found the Cork net to reduce the deficit to a point. But a a relieved Cork held on for the one minute of additional time.

CORK: D Óg Cusack; S McDonnell, E Cadogan, B Murphy; J Gardiner, W Egan, S O’Neill (0-1); J O’Connor (0-2), P Cronin; B O’Connor (0-2), C McCarthy (1-0), N McCarthy; L O’Farrell (1-0), P O’Sullivan (0-1), P Horgan (0-10, five frees). Subs: R Curran for Egan (53 mins), T Kenny (0-1) for N McCarthy (57 mins), C Naughton for O’Farrell (58 mins), B Cooper for C McCarthy (61 mins).

OFFALY: J Dempsey; C McDonald, D Kenny, S Egan; D Hayden, R Hanniffy, D Morkan; D Currams (0-5), C Egan (1-0); B Carroll, J Bergin (0-1), C Mahon (0-1); S Dooley (1-9, 1-0 from a ‘65, seven frees), G Healion, J Mulrooney. Subs: B Murphy for S Egan (13 mins), C Parlon for Mulrooney (47 mins), J Brady for Murphy (65 mins), T Carroll for Healion (67 mins).

Referee: J Ryan (Tipperary).