Offaly gave as good as they had for about 45 minutes, but really weren't in the same class as Cork. That said Cork are a long way off their peak too, judging by the amount of basic errors they made.
Despite our worries Offaly did compete well enough on the half forward line. Brady, Molloy and Mahon managed to challenge well under the high ball and Offaly did make a few good catches.
The Cork full back line didn't look that comfortable. Shorn of the Rock and Brian Murphy, they looked shaky when Offaly managed to get good ball into Shane Dooley especially.
Eoin Cadogan first instinct of defending looks to be to pull and drag his marker, rather than hurl.
Even so, it was clear that Offaly were going full tilt to stay in the game, while Cork were playing reasonably within themselves. Cork's teamwork was much superior. The simple lay offs to get out of trouble and the greater composure on the ball. Offaly players battled hard to the man and most players acquitted themselves individually. There were some great heroic dam plugging deeds by Offaly players, but really the cohesion isn't there. It was a Division 1 team vs. a Division 2 team.
Sadly the traditional Offaly second half fade out arrived again to make the scoreboard look ugly.
Cork reeled off 1-7 without reply - The second goal by Horgan seemed to completely kill the Offaly spirit. Offaly started to look for goals at that stage. In truth they could have kept the points going over to maybe leave their final total at 1-16 or 1-17.
Offaly hurling sides need to cope better with setbacks.
A major bugbear of mine is that in this decade Offaly team seems to completely go out of games and concede a string of easy scores once they fall more than 5 or 6 points behind.
The last couple of time we have played Kilkenny, we have been right with them at half time and yet lose by about 15 or 20 points in the end. By the end it was shooting practice for Cork.
Aisake looks a real handful of a hurler. Certainly not a gifted stickman, his size and awkwardness caused headaches. I'd worry about David Kenny's confidence after conceding goals in consecutive games to big mullocking forwards.
Good enough crowd at the game. Plenty of Cork fans there too. We got in plenty of digs in about Siptu and strikers etc. One Cork man piped back "Arra, shure Offaly have been on strike since 7 o'clock!"
