Seánie McGrath: Cork's 15 better than Dublin on paper but Croke Park another matter

Spreading the game is the challenge. It’s a challenge that can find momentum off a result like Saturday and a new face at the business end of the championship.

Nothing stood out from Dublin’s 2025 results or performances to suggest a breakthrough at Limerick’s expense. Scratching at the surface, though, perhaps there were little clues scattered here and there.

Limerick, coming into the quarter-final, were seven goals from five games. Nothing surprising in that figure given John Kiely’s teams have always been about death by a 1,000 white flags. Dublin, coming in, were 16 goals from six games. Nothing surprising here either if you study the goal-led Na Fianna team Niall Ó Ceallacháin created and carried to the club summit earlier this year.

At January’s All-Ireland club final, I felt the tale of tape was one side performing to their peak and another below-par. Upon reflection, there was evidently more to it. Na Fianna’s manic aggression, crunching hits, and curtailment of Sars’ free-scoring forwards was replicated in blue on Saturday, as was their thirst for goals. Ó Ceallacháin's managerial style and managerial ability is clearly to create a side possessing a strong goal-scoring touch.

Where Limerick were too late in getting Peter Casey and Shane O’Brien on the field, an injection of sharp-shooting freshness that should have arrived when they hit the front on 51 minutes, Ó Ceallacháin was so clever in introducing the powerful John Hetherton at half-time. It was reminiscent of a Christy Heffernan or Kevin Hennessy being thrown into the edge of the square and carnage ensuing.

With their 14 men overworked, the introduction of Hetherton allowed teammates to lump possession in when there wasn’t the personnel or energy for a more sophisticated build-up out around the middle. You could argue this route one approach won Dublin the game, what with Hetherton's fingertips all over both goals. An effective big man on the doorstep of the opposition goal still has a place in the modern game.

With Limerick gone and Dublin emerging as Cork’s semi-final opponents, the noise outside the Cork dressing-room has had the volume tuned up.

After the Munster final, I wrote about Pat Ryan really exhibiting his mettle as a top-class manager during the four-week run-in to the semi-final. I wrote about him exhausting every avenue of expertise in his set-up to ensure preparation and injury-management was as close to perfect as you can get.

Psychology now comes into play too. The intangible of what is going on inside a fella's head and how is he now thinking about the game, compared to if their semi-final opponents were someone else. The challenge for Pat is to make sure the tone and language being used for the next two weeks is 100% wired into Dublin, not looking at two weeks after that.

Did Limerick fall for that? Who knows? But certainly, Cork can't. This next outing is an All-Ireland final in itself.

No one would have predicted that, six weeks ago, the team of the decade and the All-Ireland champions would be gone. And so who's to say there isn't another surprise in this championship? Focus, therefore, has to be the main word in the Cork dressing-room until July 5.

On paper, Cork's 15 is better than Dublin's. Paper, of course, doesn't win championship games. Cork have to curtail Conor McHugh’s marauding runs up field. They have to curtail Conor Burke’s seamless transitioning of defence to attack. They have to curtail early the very obvious Dublin momentum generated on Saturday.

John Kiely’s challenge is much different. Can he, in the later months of this year, convince players who have five All-Irelands, six Munsters, and a couple of top-shelf individual accolades to find the drive and energy to go back to the well in 2026?

Too many of his players were sloppy in their decision-making on Saturday. They were a team that lacked any sort of intensity. I wasn't overly surprised by this lack of energy, such was the emptying by everyone on the night of the marathon Munster final, but they still could have controlled their own destiny better by making changes earlier than they did.

In the past, even when they weren’t fully clued into a championship game, they were able to deliver a result. The difference now, with ageing limbs and heavy mileage on the clock, is that their stalwarts are struggling to produce the moments to lift them over the line. They probably are at a crossroads.

Where Tipperary are at is heading towards the category of serious contenders.

Cohesion and self-belief have been repaired and restored. Jake Morris is in hurler of the year territory. With the mix of young and old, Liam Cahill has created a carefree approach that allows them to play the type of game we have always associated with Tipperary. Skill-sets and wrists to die for but married with an aggression that stars of yesteryear like Bobby and Declan Ryan would tip their hat at.

Their fitness levels weren't at the required level last year. That’s another area that’s since been corrected. They are now in the elite bracket on the S&C front.

The job Cahill has done in turning around their form after two poor exits in 2023 and ‘24 could be seen in Saturday’s team containing only seven starters from last year’s 18-point hammering at home to Cork.

As for Galway, the less said the better. Some of their striking, particularly with the breeze, was borderline desperate. But for a flukey goal at the finish they wouldn’t have got past the 20-point mark. Micheál Donoghue is another manager with a job in front of him.