Seán O'Donoghue: Up to you whether you want to listen to outside noise

Outside ‘noise’ is not something that is allowed to permeate the Cork dressing-room, maintains defender Seán O’Donoghue.

On Sunday, the Rebels reached a third straight All-Ireland SHC semi-final as they had 26 points to spare on Offaly, backing up a status as strong favourites beforehand.

Cork led throughout at FBD Semple Stadium and O’Donoghue believes that the fact there were four changes from the team that lost to Limerick in the Munster final underlined how nobody can take anything for granted, especially with quality to come off the bench.

“Yeah, there was a couple of changes made on Sunday,” he said.

“Obviously, the fellas coming off the bench who had been starting, they had points to prove when they came on and they played well.

“We had other lads who hadn’t been starting but had been coming on consistently and they had points to prove as well and show what they're capable of.

“You have that competition, but also I suppose, Offaly came out of Leinster in third place, so they're obviously good.

“This unbackable favourite thing is just noise, it’s up to you whether you want to listen or not, but we don't listen to any of that kind of stuff anyway.”

Cork scored five first-half goals to end the game as a contest but in the second half Offaly scored two goals as Ben O’Connor’s side’s scoring rate dropped.

“Your intention is to obviously just drive it on,” he said.

“You want to do the same things in the second half there as you did in the first half, it just didn't work out that way. It's hard to pinpoint, I suppose, but it’s something that we're going to have to work on for the next two weeks and just make sure that we're firing in both halves against Galway.”

In the first half, O’Donoghue assisted a goal for Brian Hayes and then in the second period he managed to score his first-ever championship point for Cork.

“I just think we had that luxury I suppose, when they were kind of sitting a fella back there the odd time,” he said.

“You had the luxury of going forward and forcing them to try to track back, and if they didn't track back, then you were free. There was just an instructin there, just to take a chance and go if you saw it when the chance presented itself.

“If I picked the ball first time, I was probably going to go for a goal, that was on my mind but I obviously mis-picked it and then I had a chance to just throw it over, so yeah, first score in the championship.”

He might not get the chance to get on the scoresheet against Galway, but of course the primary aim is to help Cork to what would be a seventh straight final.

“Yeah, we know we’re capable of doing it and we've had moments, parts of games and stuff that we haven't done it, but that doesn't define us either,” he said.

“When we're firing, we're hard to beat and when we're not firing, we're easy to beat. It's a case of just making sure that we're firing 99 percent of the time.”