\u200bAll-Ireland senior football championship quarter-final<\/p>\n
Mayo 0-23 Cork 0-18<\/p>\n
By Paul Keane at Croke Park<\/p>\n
Phenom duo Darragh Beirne and Kobe McDonald underlined their rising star status with a couple of terrific Croke Park displays to help secure Mayo’s All-Ireland SFC semi-final spot.<\/p>\n
Connacht U-20 finalists with Mayo back in April, the talented teenagers reeled off 11 points between them to keep Andy Moran’s side well in the hunt for the Sam Maguire Cup.<\/p>\n
Beirne struck 0-7 and took the Man of the Match award while McDonald, bound for St Kilda and the AFL when the season is over, kicked 0-4 and lit up the game with sparks of genius.<\/p>\n
There was a huge performance too from Ryan O’Donoghue, who finished with 0-8 and the Belmullet man must have pushed Beirne close for the individual award.<\/p>\n
Tommy Conroy had a big impact when he came on, scoring a point and creating two more as the 2021 finalists turned the screw in the closing quarter.<\/p>\n
Mayo reeled off five two-pointers in all, compared to just two for Cork who also registered 14 wides and ultimately failed in their bid to reach a first semi-final since 2012.<\/p>\n
Cork’s season is over but Mayo will return to Croke Park on the weekend of July 11\/12 for their last-four clash.<\/p>\n
Cork played a cautious, cagey game when pulling off one of the results of the Championship so far in Round 2A, overcoming Donegal in Ballybofey.<\/p>\n
They were expected to be a little more attack-minded this time against a Mayo side that always possesses a licence to thrill.<\/p>\n
Both sides did their best to rack up the scores and to get their key shooters in promising positions in the opening half.<\/p>\n
But that 35 minutes finished with the teams locked on level terms, 0-9 apiece, and the nagging feeling that the game hadn’t yet caught fire.<\/p>\n
McDonald showed glimpses of his genius, turning his first possession after just 30 seconds into a point at the Hill 16 End and immediately giving a clenched fist gesture to Mayo fans on the terrace.<\/p>\n
Later in the half, the Crossmolina man injected some more quality into the game when he played a slick one-two just outside the arc and contorted his body to send a spinning right-footed kick over for an orange flag score.<\/p>\n
O’Donoghue had his first-half moments too for Mayo, nailing two points from play and a two-pointer from a free just before the break after a Cork three-up breach.<\/p>\n
Colm O’Callaghan, back after suspension, pointed against the head for Cork in the fifth minute following a terrific turnover by Chris \u00d3g Jones and breakaway.<\/p>\n
Paul Walsh and Steven Sherlock nailed a couple of eye-catching singles as well but we were still waiting for the fireworks.<\/p>\n
Neither side were quite able to work a fast attack to get in behind the opposition’s defence, leaving a lot of 11 v 11, cat and mouse scenarios around the arc.<\/p>\n
All too often from Cork’s perspective, it petered out into nothing with the Rebels firing eight first-half wides.<\/p>\n
Sherlock, who came into the game with nine two-pointers in the Championship, had just one attempt for a long-range score that flew wide. The first time he received the ball in a scorable position along the arc, he was swarmed by three Mayo men, indicating the homework they’d done beforehand.<\/p>\n
Defences were clearly on top with Sherlock picked up by Donnacha McHugh and fellow Cork forward Jones trailed by Eoin McGreal.<\/p>\n
At the other end, Kobe had Daniel O’Mahony for company, O’Donoghue was tracked by Jack Coyne and Beirne had Se\u00e1n Meehan on his tail.<\/p>\n
Jones nudged Cork ahead after the restart, 0-10 to 0-9, but Mayo then cut loose. Well, kind of.<\/p>\n
They only hit three scores between the 39th and 41st minute but two of them were two-pointers, both from the increasingly influential Beirne, sandwiching a McDonald single.<\/p>\n
Mayo’s four-point lead, 0-14 to 0-10, was the largest either side had held to that point.<\/p>\n
Cork cut the deficit back to the minimum, thanks in part to two Paul Walsh points, before Mayo got it back out to four again.<\/p>\n
Their fifth two-pointer, by Jack Carney, left the westerners 0-18 to 0-14 clear and Conroy cut through for a single to extend the gap.<\/p>\n
In the middle of it all, McDonald had the crowd, and anyone associated with his AFL club St Kilda, gasping after a brilliant high catch from a Mayo kick-out which led to an O’Donoghue point.<\/p>\n
Brian Hurley lent some punch to Cork’s attack when he came on but they needed a goal and Brian O’Driscoll’s 64th minute shot that was saved by Jack Livingstone was as close as they came.<\/p>\n
Leading by five with just seconds remaining, McDonald attempted to tie a bow on a special day for Mayo with a shot at goal after a searing solo run but his kick was blocked. Not to worry, there’ll be at least one more day out for the Crossmolina phenom and Mayo at Croke Park.<\/p>\n
Mayo scorers: Ryan O’Donoghue 0-8 (1 tpf, 0-2f), Darragh Beirne 0-7 (1 tp, 1 tpf), Kobe McDonald 0-4 (1 tp), Jack Carney 0-2 (tp), Tommy Conroy 0-1, Conor Loftus 0-1.<\/p>\n
Cork scorers: Steven Sherlock 0-7 (1tpf, 0-2 45, 0-1f), Paul Walsh 0-3, Mark Cronin 0-2 (1 tpf), Chris \u00d3g Jones 0-2, Colm O’Callaghan 0-1, Ian Maguire 0-1, Rory Maguire 0-1, Brian Hurley 0-1.<\/p>\n
Mayo: Jack Livingstone; Donnacha McHugh, Eoin McGreal, Jack Coyne; Sam Callinan, David McBrien, Enda Hession; Bob Tuohy, Jack Carney; Stephen Coen, Paul Towey, Jordan Flynn; Darragh Beirne, Ryan O’Donoghue, Kobe McDonald.<\/p>\n
Subs: Diarmuid Duffy for McGreal 12, Tommy Conroy for Towey h\/t, Conor Loftus for Coen 50, Matthew Ruane for Tuohy 54, Rory Brickenden for Duffy 65.<\/p>\n
Cork: Patrick Doyle; Daniel O’Mahony, Maurice Shanley, Se\u00e1n Meehan; Brian O’Driscoll, Tommy Walsh, Rory Maguire; Ian Maguire, Colm O’Callaghan; Paul Walsh, Dara Sheedy, Se\u00e1n McDonnell; Mark Cronin, Chris \u00d3g Jones, Steven Sherlock.<\/p>\n
Subs: Ruair\u00ed Deane for McDonnell 48, Conor Corbett for Sheedy 51, Brian Hurley for Cronin 60, Se\u00e1n Brady for Rory Maguire 62, Se\u00e1n Walsh for Paul Walsh 65.<\/p>\n
Referee: Martin McNally (Monaghan).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u200bAll-Ireland senior football championship quarter-final Mayo 0-23 Cork 0-18 By Paul Keane at Croke Park Phenom duo Darragh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-521765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}