Wexford midfield simply overrun

I was very disappointed with the way Wexford set out their stall. They had to crowd midfield and do something about the Cork puck-out, but they never even tried to counter that.

When you see an intercounty midfield contributing 1-7, it shows how much Cork were on top and how much Wexford under-performed yesterday.

Going into the game Wexford needed to have some plan to cope with Cork's runners. Just to compete. There's no secret about how Cork play. They keep coming at you, coming at you. You have to crowd midfield like in soccer, or in football nowadays, to squeeze the space.

Adrian Fenlon hit a lot of loose ball for Wexford from open play, but he was marking Tom Kenny who was enjoying the freedom of the park.

I thought they would draw out the half-backs and make it difficult for players on solo runs to get by. Kenny soloed 50 yards and no one came to him, which was a crazy situation.

Then a few more had pot shots at Damien Fitzhenry. He had another great display, putting himself in front of Timmy McCarthy and making other great saves.

I think he was a bit unsighted for the goal, that maybe Doc O'Connor moved across his line of vision.

Wexford started promisingly. Eoin Quigley hit a lovely point and I thought "this will be great if they keep it up and keep backing each other up". But it never happened. Just shortly afterwards Ronan Curran and Seán Óg Ó hAilpín started to dominate and Wexford weren't really in the hunt after that.

Again we saw the value of coming into an All-Ireland semi-final with a few recent games under your belt.

I thought Cork were very hungry. It's not often you see Joe Deane going for goal with Cork 12 points ahead.

He's always one to take the tap over the bar, but yesterday he went for goal and Fitzhenry had to pull off another great save.

Brian Corcoran looked good too. He won a few frees, laid off a few balls and kept Darragh Ryan busy, which is generally important when playing Wexford. But the defence was exceptional, and I thought Ó hAilpín gave his best display in a long time. He looks very focused this year.

The Paul Codd factor didn't work for Wexford either, even from the puck-out point of view, which I thought was one area that would have worked out better for them. There was very little supply of ball coming in to the forwards. When some did get through, the Jacobs flattered to deceive and I felt very little came of the hurling they managed to do.

For most of the game, though, they were forced to go looking for goals and it's relatively easy to defend against that sort of situation. They were well and comprehensively beaten all around the field.

If I were Donal O'Grady I'd definitely have brought in the substitutes a bit earlier, but at the end of the day it's a match and you're getting ready for the next day, giving your players time on the pitch.

The way the final has worked out this year, there's no doubt that the provincial championships are being marginalised. Wexford have the Leinster title to show for their summer, which is something, but you know that wouldn't mean as much to Kilkenny.

Munster is protected in a way because it's a hurling province so there's always competition, but for the foreseeable future a Leinster championship is going to mean a lot more in Offaly and Wexford than it would in Kilkenny.

Waterford and Wexford were sitting ducks when the semi-finals came along. The lay-off is too long and it's a good idea that that will change next year.

Last week Kilkenny came in against Waterford after just the sort of preparation Brian Cody would have liked, battling matches where his forwards had to play against seven backs. It showed last week when they were off the mark very quickly.

It was the same yesterday. I suppose O'Grady will be concerned that the last two games in Croke Park haven't been much use in preparing for a final. The Antrim game was a cakewalk and so was yesterday's, and he'd have preferred a sterner test.

But that's not Cork's fault and I don't think it makes that much difference. The two teams know each other well enough at this stage and I can't see Cork getting fazed by it, considering Kilkenny will still be favourites.