Ger calls it right as Cork call Clare's bluff

The Ciotóg Side: Trust Ger to whittle a shtick into a veritable lance, fit for any Technicolor Apache from the 1950s.

No surname is required. The Man From Feakle, Biddy Earley's Nemesis, Doc Banner: take your pick of soubriquets. As with Billy the Kid, so too with Loughnane's gunslinging prose. A nickname sits more easily on his energies.

Set the scene, on this prompt. It is easy to imagine the ex-manager sitting at a card table in a frontier saloon, a hectic smile playing about his lips, as his eyes stay cold. His column last Monday upped the ante from its first sentence: "The worst kind of person you can encounter in sport is a bluffer."

The previous afternoon, Cork had beaten Clare by six points. While pulling up, mind. It was a mauling disguised as a victory. Discard the contest's first 10 minutes and the story tilts. Within that frame, the challengers were outscored by 18 points to eight.

For Loughnane, the Dalcassians' current manager had skewed his cards: "Usually, the bluff is embellished with tales of great preparation and fancy training techniques." Quite simply, tactics went awry.

The clock ticks and the bartender's cat slinks away. Anthony Daly, seven-three off-suit in his hand, scratches his head. John Allen, immaculate in waistcoat and gaiters, polishes his spectacles, two aces in his hand, two aces flopped on the table.

He is a shopkeeper across the street, with outside interests in livestock. His wife nags and there is a third daughter to marry off to Liam MacCarthy, an Irishman lying low, out of town. Free of an afternoon, Allen likes the bar, its streaked and shadowed quiet.

The stakes are Cork: how to trump their beautifully predictable gameplan. It is all about space. Perhaps more goes on in the Rebel camp than blood tests and endlessly finessed drills. Perhaps the panel is made watch William Wyler's The Big Country (1958). The real star of this film is not Gregory Peck, playing a city boy, nor Charlton Heston, portraying a piqued cowboy. It is the landscape of the West, its impossibly high sky and implacable horizons.

For sure, the current Rebel crew seek to make hurling pitches a dauntingly large terrain and their opponents a posse. This truth was reiterated for their fourth score last Sunday. Ten or so minutes in, the champions were 0-6 to 0-3 in arrears. Tom Kenny whooshed through the middle of the Banner defence, like a palomino being pursued by mules, and posted a point.

Spiritually, his side were back on track. Now, Clare were just Eastern slickers, purveyors of snake oil and dummy lineouts. This move is Cork's signature one ever since Kenny goaled from such a position in 2004's semi-final against Wexford. The sight of such trails being blazed ignites Rebel self-belief one more time.

Faced with this speed-space equation, there is something of a consensus: crowd midfield. Hence the decision to bring Tony Griffin to its precincts. It was the wrong call. Daly should have known that his side would need at least one goal to win (and probably two of them, in all likelihood). Removing Griffin from the inside line therefore made little sense.

Another emphasis might work better. Man-mark the Kenny-O'Connor midfield pairing and let one player go to contest ball, whenever possible. Where the opposition swarm, the ball can eventually be worked out to a free Leesider, setting in motion the combination of running, support play and point-taking that is so hard to combat.

It should also be remembered that Waterford have consistently done well against Cork in the last few seasons with largely orthodox hurling. The key aspect is ambushing the Rebel half-forward line. Win sufficient ball in this sector - and use it intelligently, more to the point - and the storied half-back trio can struggle. Item: second half of the 2005 Munster final.

Equally, the full-back line was shaky enough against Clare. Pat Mulcahy is awkward and Diarmuid O'Sullivan is fond of a circus strongman-type routine until July is torn off the calendar. There is, too, a broader issue. For all their excellence as a unit, the temperament of three defenders can be erratic as regards discipline. Do not be surprised to see one of them sent off at a key juncture. O'Sullivan, Cork's Victor Mature, could easily have received two yellow cards last weekend. On such matters do championships turn.

There should be disquiet by the Lee at obtaining merely 0-1 from their half-forwards. Nor did Kieran Murphy raise a flag. The Banner men coughed up quite a few points through unforced errors and silly frees. Other intercounty managers will need to flense such lapses - and will take heart from the prospect of doing so, when at the table.

There they go, then, waved off by nagging wife, pining daughter. Cork's management is riding across the parched plains of the championship, driving their thoroughbreds before them in a gorgeous whirl of dust. Up in the mountains, different coloured feathers on their lances, four tribes watch and wait.

We will see it all in colour.

PM O'Sullivan is an academic and hurling writer whose column, The Stubborn Nore, appears on the website www.KilkennyCats.com.

He will contribute a column to The Irish Times every Friday.