Relief all round as Cork take title but Tipperary win second half

Munster SHC Final/Cork 1-21 Tipperary 1-16:  Relief was the dominant sentiment at Páirc Uí Chaoimh after this year's Guinness Munster hurling final. This latest instalment of the great traditional rivalry of Cork and Tipperary can't count as a classic of the genre but the All-Ireland champions were relieved that their once seemingly impregnable lead held out for a 50th title, Tipp equally so that they had escaped humiliation.

For everyone else there was the fact that the game, and by extension the whole Munster championship, hadn't been undermined by the abject one-sidedness that has caused such hand-wringing in Leinster.

Cork have the memory of an irresistible first half to sustain them into next month's All-Ireland quarter-finals and the unease at that second-half tailspin to lend urgency to preparations over the next four weeks.

For their opponents the afternoon was heading toward disaster by the break, when they trailed by 11 points.

Not for the first time this year, manager Ken Hogan made a number of improvements and the bulked-up attack of the second half exerted real pressure.

There will, naturally, be questions about how much the revival owed to Cork's loss of focus, but to have manoeuvred the outcome into slight doubt with a couple of minutes left was an achievement.

Such a finale looked impossible in the early stages of the match. Tipperary did start well, with Eoin Kelly sharp as a tack, shooting a couple of early scores to go with a pair from his brother Paul, who went on to have a productive afternoon, thriving in the enveloping looseness that characterised the match in the second half.

But the 0-4 to 0-2 lead established by the eighth minute was the end of the initial flourish and from then until injury time at the end of the first half, they scored no more. Cork in the interim took the match by storm and rifled home 1-10 without reply.

They even survived the potentially serious loss of Brian Corcoran with a suspected dislocated shoulder 13 minutes into the match. Neil Ronan replaced him and shot three points over the afternoon.

As expected, the home team's half backs were at the heart of this domination. There was one phase of play around the end of the first quarter when in turn, Seán Ó hAilpín, Ronan Curran and John Gardiner caught successive Tipperary clearances.

In the 17th minute Curran used one of these to launch an attack that culminated in Kieran Murphy, by now switched out onto the wing with Ben O'Connor, lofting in a high ball on top of Brendan Cummins's goal.

The Tipperary keeper went up with Joe Deane but the ball sailed over both of them into the net for a 1-6 to 0-4 lead.

Tipperary by now couldn't get any ball beyond their half forwards. Consequently there was no opportunity to test Micheál Webster in the air against Diarmuid O'Sullivan or bring Eoin Kelly back into the match.

With the ball coming back at them as inexorably as if hit into a ball alley, Tipp were under constant pressure.

Nowhere was this more evident than in the travails of Eamonn Corcoran marking Deane in the corner. The Cork forward won a succession of competitive ball during the first half and created havoc on the left flank of the attack.

But the pivotal moments of the first half came when Tipperary, trying to get something going up front, moved Eoin Kelly to the 40, where he won the first ball played into him and popped it up for Webster, who had just minutes previously been engaged in some pushing and shoving with O'Sullivan.

On this occasion the big full forward took a good catch and was fouled for a penalty. Eoin Kelly's shot was saved by Donal Cusack, and in the space of a few seconds Tipperary went from the real prospect of trailing by three to trailing by seven after Kieran Murphy pointed straight from the penalty clearance.

Kelly's own game briefly disintegrated and he missed a couple of frees that would normally have been dispatched in his sleep.

By half-time Hogan had withdrawn David Kennedy, who had been struggling with all the traffic pouring through Cork's dominant middle third, and Francis Devenney after a fruitless half-hour on Gardiner.

The switches saw Corcoran move to centre back with Hugh Moloney coming on in the corner and Redser O'Grady making an eagerly greeted appearance on the wing.

At the break John Devane was sent in for Evan Sweeney and showed his versatility after filling in as full back in the Clare semi-final by adding more weight to the attack and taking two fine points in the process.

The combination of Webster, O'Grady and Devane began to bother Cork, who were subjected to relentless aerial bombardment.

Like Tipp in the first half they were trapped by the inability of their half forwards to win ball. Tipperary's reconfigured defence was more solid and Cork's half forwards offered disappointingly little resistance.

At centrefield Colin Morrissey's switch from the wing helped give Tipperary the edge there as well and the match turned into a chase.

Four points were cut off the deficit as they outscored the opposition 0-5 to 0-1 coming up to the final quarter, and with John Carroll adding further heft to the attack, the screw turned.

But though the scores continued to leak, Cork's defence was resisting the barrage. Ó hAilpín and Gardiner continued to make life difficult for the opposing forwards and swept up a lot of ball.

Tipp didn't help themselves by failing to take some good scoring chances and every wide sapped the revival a little.

Although the margin was shrinking the match needed a goal if it was to be thrown genuinely into the hazard.

That duly arrived when Cummins dropped a long-range free into the square. Webster caught the ball and fed Carroll, whose drive for goal ended with the sliotar bobbling around the goal-line. There were differences of opinion as to who got the touch but Tommy Dunne appeared the likeliest.

Eoin Kelly narrowed the gap to four, 1-15 to 1-19, with six minutes left but Cork steadied the ship.

Tommy Dunne had two further chances at goal but one was running away across the goal with him at full stretch and the second was a snap shot that went wide.

CORK: 1. D Cusack; 2. P Mulcahy, 3. D O'Sullivan, 4. B Murphy; 5. J Gardiner, 6. R Curran, 7. S Ó hAilpín (capt.); 8. T Kenny, 9. J O'Connor (0-2); 10. B O'Connor (0-6, all frees), 11. N McCarthy (0-1), 12. T McCarthy; 13. K Murphy (Sarsfields; 1-2), 14. B Corcoran (0-1), 15. J Deane (0-5, three frees). Subs: 20. N Ronan (0-3) for Corcoran (13 mins), 17. W Sherlock for B Murphy (58 mins), 21. J O'Callaghan for Kenny (66 mins), 22. K Murphy (Erin's Own; 0-1) for T McCarthy (69 mins).

TIPPERARY: 1. B Cummins; 2. E Corcoran, 3. P Maher, 4. P Curran; 5. D Fanning, 6. D Kennedy, 7. D Fitzgerald; 8. B Dunne (capt), 9. P Kelly (0-7, two frees, one 65); 10. C Morrissey, 12. T Dunne (1-0), 11. F Devanney; 13. E Kelly (0-6, two frees), 14. M Webster, 30. E Sweeney. Subs: 23. H Moloney for Kennedy (32 mins), 27. G O'Grady for Devanney (33 mins), 19. J Devane (0-2) for Sweeney (half-time), 18. J Carroll (0-1) for B Dunne (48 mins).

YELLOW CARDS: Cork - D O'Sullivan (43 mins). Tipperary - P Kelly (20 mins), H Moloney (37 mins first half), M Webster (43 mins), D Fitzgerald (54 mins).

Referee: B Kelly (Westmeath)

Attendance: 43,500