Shefflin Praises Dublin Manager For 'Brilliant' Honesty Over Tactics After Cork Rout

Cork are into an All-Ireland final, but where does Saturday's rout leave Dublin?

After Dublin's sensational victory over Limerick with 14 men, the question on the mind of many pundits and punters was would Dublin build on the quarterfinal win with another strong performance against Cork, or revert to the middling side who well-beaten by Galway on their own patch in the last week of the round robin.

The Limerick victory was the product of a courageous and at times reckless approach to defending that another team might have punished. Dublin dared to dream that day, even with 14 men, and their courage was rewarded with victory.

Today, the final scoreboard was worse than anyone could have expected. The history books will note that Dublin conceded seven goals and lost by 20 points in an All-Ireland semifinal.

Inevitably Dublin's tactics played a huge part in the final score. Even after conceding three goals in the first quarter, manager Niall Ó Ceallacháin refused to pull forwards deeper or deploy a sweeper.

While Dublin did have a few purple patches, Cork's ability to create goals at will ensured the match was going to be a rout. And still, even as the match wore on and the result was assured, Dublin refused to give into damage control.

It was an admirable but doomed approach against a Cork team with the full forward arsenal of Hayes, Horgan and Connolly.

Speaking to RTÉ, Niall Ó Ceallacháin admitted he'd face huge criticism for his tactics but he said it was the only way his team could have hoped to beat Cork.

The way we went at it, listen, be honest with you, there's always a chance that something like that can happen. But to be honest, what are we here for, you know what I mean? Like stepping off or going zonal on or anything like that or providing more cover inside. I have no doubt we'd be criticized now that that's something that we should have done.

But listen, what I'd say to that is, against a team like Cork with the abilities that they have, you might see 7 goals, but you will lose the game.

So, we weren't here to take a step back. We weren't here to not go man on man.

I'd probably be criticized over how we set up, and that's absolutely fair enough, but that would be my and our rationale anyway.

Here's the interview in full.

Speaking on RTÉ after the game, Henry Shefflin praised Ó Ceallacháin for his honesty.

I thought it was brilliant. I thought the honesty...because we were all remarking 'would they get some cover back there?' And it's easy enough for us to say 'why didn't they do the cover', but the reason why he said it, I think is, he said 'if we're going to go for this, we're going to go for this'.

I said it prematch about Conor Burke marking Cian Lynch and scoring three points off him. It was very attack-minded and very brave. And that's how they got to this stage by being brave, because they could have easily sat back. I suppose they had so many issues to try and solve, they said look 'let's go for it'.

Hindsight is wonderful and all this. It's very honest that he's come out and said that, because he knows himself, at no stage did they go with a sweeper. They went man-on-man and just as he said, Cork were way too good.

It's been a memorable year for the former Na Fianna manager, who won club All-Ireland and masterminded one of hurling's greatest upsets.

The scoreline will sting, but as Anthony Daly noted after the match, there's a broader representation of clubs in the Dublin squad and a lot to build on.

Hurling badly needs a competitive Dublin side. We're very interested to see what Ó Ceallacháin does with Dublin next.