Making the most of a dog day at Croke Park

CHAMPIONSHIP 2010 THE LESSONS OF LOSING:The All-Ireland senior champions in both codes used big game defeats in 2009 to spur them on to make amends in 2010, writes KEITH DUGGAN

IF THERE is one consolation for the counties whose ambitions fell short in this championship, it is that teams can learn from big-game defeats. Tipperary and Cork, the All-Ireland hurling and football champions, have both demonstrated the lessons from the acute disappointment of a big-game defeat can be turned to one’s advantage the following season. Both teams experienced similar extremes of emotion

They were lauded for their form and consistency during and after the 2009 championship but were treated to cooler appraisals this year. Tipperary’s chances of even returning to an All-Ireland final were regarded as precarious after they slumped to a June defeat against Cork. Meanwhile, the Cork footballers were also living dangerously, once again betraying their vulnerability to Kerry when they were beaten after a replay in the Munster semi-final and then advancing through the knock-out rounds without setting the world alight.

In fact, even at half-time of the All-Ireland final, the jury was out as to whether Cork would be able to summon their A game and overcome what was a persuasive performance from Down, the novice All-Ireland final contenders. But when those All-Ireland finals were on the line – in the second half – both Tipperary and Cork stepped up with a resoluteness and a confidence that had been hard earned.

When it counted, they played like champions. So the old cliche is true: you learn from defeat?

“It is an interesting question and it can be answered in a lot of different ways,” says Eamon O’Shea, selector and coach for the Tipperary team. “On a basic level, getting beaten gives a team a motivation to get back to that point again. But players and managers all respond to it in different ways. Not everyone is on the same page. It is tricky because if you spend time trying to get into the heads of the players that it is all about the next game and the next ball, about living in the here and now, then it is not a great idea to constantly refer to a game in which you were beaten. There comes a point when you move on.

“One of the things about last year’s All-Ireland final was dealing with the various things that made it seem as if we were unlucky – had the penalty not happened and so on. That was sort of hanging over us and what we picked up in that match against Cork is that without consciously referring to the All-Ireland final, there might have been a feeling of: ‘Why don’t they just let us back to the All-Ireland so we can play that game? Why do we have to go and play these games first?’ So we had to get that out or our system.” For Cork, getting back to the “promised land” has never been a problem. As Conor Counihan observed in a notably calm and reflective post-match press conference, Cork’s form was subject to criticism throughout the summer but at the same time, they were tipped to advance. Once Kerry and Tyrone were swept away, Cork were installed as firm favourites for the All-Ireland. James McCartan made the same point prior to the match. But coming into that match, a strange expectation hung over Cork.

It was generally accepted that they had made it to the final on less than vintage form – and only for an inexplicably sudden descent into panic by Dublin, they would have been beaten in the semi-final. In the final, it was widely regarded that they would win as long as they produced the kind of performance that had eluded them all summer. But the nagging question was: why should they be able to produce it in the final? As it happened, they flirted with disaster, looking staid in comparison to Down’s sweeping attacks in the first half of the match. But in the second half, trailing by three points and faced with taking one road or another, Cork took utter control of the match.

Paul Kerrigan’s nimble run and point under pressure was a huge moment of the game. But so too was the attitude of several key Cork performers, particularly Donncha O’Connor, whose ferocious reaction to the points he scored communicated that losing the match was simply not an option. Even before Cork had drawn level, it was clear that they were feeding off some internal belief. And even as if flooded into them, it drained from Down through the critical minutes of the second half.

“I could see a resolve about them,” O’Shea says when asked if he noticed similarities between the Cork and Tipperary performances. “I could see each of them realising: we have been through this before. They did play well when they needed to play well. And also, they had the composure to keep going when it wasn’t going so well.”

But Cork’s story has been a talented squad allied to a kind of dogged persistence. Counihan paid tribute to the many players who “for one reason or another” did not get to be part of the squad who eventually landed the county’s first title in two decades. He did not name names but veteran foot soldiers like Anthony Lynch, the bulky genius of Colin Corkery and Phillip Clifford from Bantry probably crossed the minds of many.

For Tipperary, the task was more demanding. They recovered from that Cork defeat admirably and regained their belief and elan. But in the final, they faced not just a team that was a single match away from five unbeaten championships, they faced the masters of pressure situations. Somehow, in the space of 12 months, they learned not only how to deal with that force, they learned how to subdue it.

O’Shea remembers walking past Brendan Cummins late in the quarter-final against Galway. Tipperary were two points down and the pair of them scanned the field. He could sense the calmness about Cummins, that he was thinking his way through this and he felt certain they would still win the game.

“Didn’t know how we were going to do it. I just felt we would. What the All-Ireland final loss did was give us a slow-burning belief that we were able to play in that kind of pressure situation. But the big message we took from it is that we had not been clinical enough. We did not get goals. They did. We learned too that we are not as physically strong as Kilkenny and that we had to learn how to compete for the ball better. So you do learn from defeat in terms of performance. But I think the important thing is not to go out and repeat what you did the previous year. If you simply send a team out telling them to give it 100 per cent, then they will do that and they will get the same result as last year.”

So Cork and Tipperary are in new territory now. It is one thing for All-Ireland runners-up to examine what went wrong. It is another matter for the champions to do so. It is a safe bet that in Kilkenny the analysis of what needs to be done for next year has begun. Down’s immediate wish was that they do not become one-year wonders.

Getting to an All-Ireland final is far from easy but losing one may not necessarily be the end of the world.