Denis Walsh: Brian Hayes is the point of difference Cork needed to halt Limerick’s march
At the beginning of the second half Cork made a subtle change. In the first half, most of their long puck-outs had been aimed at a cluster of players outside the Limerick 20-metre line, where every ball that hit the ground caused frothing at the mouth. On the restart, Cork decluttered the landing zone. Brian Hayes was sent to the top of the D. He was the target.
Within four minutes, it yielded two points. If Hayes didn’t win the ball cleanly he made contact somehow and caused the ball to break in front. In their long and glorious pomp Limerick had annexed the ground under the dropping ball and yielded to nobody. For the second time this summer, Cork had laid siege to Limerick’s castle.
Cork scored 1-11 off their own puck-outs; 0-9 by going long. Down their throats.
Hayes is the point of difference Cork had been missing. For years they had forward lines with pace and flair and imagination, but they were vulnerable to aggression and blackguarding and they needed the ball handed to them, by registered post. Here was Pat Ryan’s vision: a Cork forward who could attack the ball in the air and move with menace with the ball in hand and mind himself when the other crowd got saucy. In Hayes, not everybody could see that.
Before his first league match as Cork manager, against Limerick 17 months ago, Ryan made an interesting observation. “In our psyche we value skill and speed and nice hurlers and all that kind of craic,” he said, “but we just need to bring a mix to that. The fella that might give you that bit more physicality, that bit more aggression, but who might leave the ball through his legs a bit. Can you get more out of him?
“You’d have fellas saying, ‘Ah, his hurling will never be fast enough for intercounty.’ But there’s loads of those kind of fellas playing intercounty at the moment who are doing a great job for their team.”
Cork’s Brian Hayes and Dan Morrissey of Limerick at Croke Park on Sunday. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho
Ryan didn’t mention any names, but Hayes was precisely that kind of player. In club games he was prone to missing his first touch, or the ball was liable to pop out of his hand. But he had something. When St Finbarr’s won the Cork title in 2022, for the first time in 31 years, he was the top scorer from play in the championship with 4-16; he was also the top goalscorer in the championship.
His hurling was unrefined and last year he was essentially a project player. Hayes had been a dual star on age-grade Cork teams, and when Ryan took over as Cork manager Hayes was part of the senior football panel. But he had won two under-20 hurling All-Irelands under Ryan, and the new Cork manager approached him. There were no guarantees; Hayes embraced the challenge.
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Last summer, Cork used him as an impact sub. Against Tipperary, he scored the goal that ignited Cork’s comeback. In other cameo appearances he looked like a work in progress: a little awkward, a little unbalanced or unsure. This year, everything came together: the finishing, the ball-winning, the finesse, the confidence, the power.
The days when forward lines were unionised and you were either a finisher or a forager are long gone; Cork were the last county to recognise that. Ryan tore down the lines of demarcation.
Cork's Brian Hayes scores a goal against Limerick that is later disallowed. Photograph: Bryan Keane/Inpho
On Sunday Hayes was sensational. With 1-4, he was Cork’s top scorer from play. Another goal was disallowed after referee Thomas Walsh adjudged, incorrectly, that Alan Connolly had fouled a hand pass. But Hayes’s finish was sublime: a backhanded smash to the roof of the net, without breaking stride or thinking for a second that he should try to control the ball first. Only a player whose confidence is in full spate could have executed that shot.
Minutes later he was through on goal again, only for his lunging flick to clear Nickie Quaid and the crossbar.
Cork needed Hayes in the first half, when Patrick Horgan was peripheral, and Alan Connolly was struggling to get his hands on the ball. Against Limerick in May Hayes announced himself as an intercounty forward of substance and threat but this performance eclipsed that. Limerick had a couple of months to come up with a plan of containment and they still couldn’t hold him. Hayes led the Cork attack, first among equals.
Connolly improved as the game wore on and he was terrific before the finish. For him this has been a breakthrough season too, but his talent had been a known quantity for years and his arrival on this stage had taken longer than expected. Hayes was a contemporary of Connolly on one of those All-Ireland-winning under-20 teams, but he wasn’t burdened with expectation.
Nobody could see this coming. Everybody can see it now.
