After the disquiet sparked by the fixture arrangements for these quarter-finals, the action that unfolded confirmed one suspicion – lunchtime hurling is not a concept that looks like it will catch fire. Cork against Dublin was a game largely drained of colour, a lacklustre tie that ended in a five-point win for Pat Ryan’s team.“I suppose it was a bit dead. I think you could see, it’s very hard to have a really high-standard match at quarter past one on a Saturday and that’s what we saw.
Cork’s form noticeably dipped in the final quarter as Dublin chipped away at the deficit. After 15 goals in five games, this was the first championship tie where Cork drew a blank. The scope for improvement is clear, it will be needed given the obstacle that is coming down the tracks in Limerick.Amidst the dejection of another Munster final loss at the hands of Limerick, Brian Lohan searched for some positivity by pointing to his team’s previous shows of resilience when faced with such setbacks.
They were whipped by 16 points by Kilkenny in the Leinster decider, and while the gap against Cork was only five by the final whistle, Dublin encountered plenty problems for the majority of the day as Cork surged clear. It took a fightback, inspired by players like Chris Crummey and Conor Burke, to ensure they clawed back the deficit late on, but in truth the game was firmly gone from Dublin’s reach by early in the third quarter.