Joe Canning Identifies Major Mistake Cork Made In Handling Tipp Sweeper

The week since Sunday's All-Ireland hurling final between Cork and Tipperary has been defined by the postmortem into the second-half collapse suffered by the Rebels in Croke Park.

Coming into the game as favourites, Cork should have been buoyed by their six-point half-time lead, but things fell apart for Pat Ryan's side after the break.

Tipp's brave use of a sweeper ultimately completely nullified Cork's access to their ruthless forward line, leading to a remarkable second-half score of 3-14 to 0-02 in Tipp's favour.

It was one of the most dramatic turnarounds in All-Ireland final history, and Tipperary deserve enormous credit for stifling what had been the most prolific attack in the country all season.

However, Joe Canning believes that Cork should have been more proactive in adapting to the unexpected defensive setup from Tipp.

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Writing in his column in the Irish Times, Joe Canning said that he felt Cork had missed a trick in their response to Tipperary's sweeper system in the All-Ireland hurling final.

Canning referenced the mid-2010s, when sweepers were a far more commonly used tactic, and specifically his native Galway's clash with Cork in the 2015 quarter-final.

Cork deployed Brian Murphy as a sweeper, and Canning - Galway's full-forward that day - said that he made a conscious effort to occupy the spare man in the Rebels' defence.

It is a tactic he believes Cork would have been well-served using in Sunday's final.

You often heard people say that you must mark the sweeper, even if that meant sacrificing somebody. I didn’t try to mark Murphy that day, but I positioned myself behind him and made sure he knew I was there. In that way I occupied him more than he wanted to be occupied.

Cork didn’t try to dictate anything with Tipp’s seventh defender. He set up exactly as Tipp planned and Cork didn’t do anything to disrupt it.

Tipp took a chance by going with an extra defender. Nobody had ever won an All-Ireland with a sweeper before.

It was a brave move from Tipperary, but one that paid huge dividends for Liam Cahill's side.

In the game referenced by Joe Canning, Galway ran out victorious by 12 points despite Cork's use of a sweeper - not far off the 15-point margin Tipp won Sunday's final by.

Many possible reasons have been floated to explain Cork's calamitous second-half performance, but had they properly tackled the issues posed to them by Tipperary's sweeper, things could have worked out quite differently.