CORK substitutes made a huge impact as the county reached a first All-Ireland SHC final in eight years with victory over Kilkenny at Croke Park yesterday.

The Rebels hadn’t won at GAA headquarters, been victorious in a semi-final or seen off the Cats since 2013, but those three itches were scratched with a 1-37 to 1-32 win to set up an August 22 clash with Limerick.

Extra time was required after Kilkenny had wiped out a six-point deficit in the closing stages of normal time, but Cork came good again, helped by Jack O’Connor’s goals. Subs Shane Kingston (seven points), Alan Cadogan (three) and Declan Dalton (one) all contributed on the scoreboard and selector Diarmuid O’Sullivan acknowledged to the impact of the replacements.

“That’s what we’d expect,” he said, “that’s why we have a bench.

“We had 11 guys back in Cork whose hearts were in their boots on Friday night when the squad was announced because we can only bring 26. They firmly believed they had something to offer and, yes, they would have.

“The guys who came on and made an impact, that’s what we expect of them. the guys at home, we’ll be expecting them to come back on Tuesday night and try and see can they force some of those players out. This is a revolving door. Our bench selection over the past few weeks, we’ve had guys come in and get minutes and move out of the squad the next week. 

“Guys are continually putting their hands up, that’s what we need, that’s what we want. 

When guys come on, we expect them to have an impact, it wasn’t the case early on in the year against Limerick.

"When they came in in attack that day we were very ragged, we lost our shape. But this qualifying system has given us a chance to work on that.”

TRUST

At the other end of the field, the Cork full-back line was resolute.

“The key to any defence is that you trust each other,” Diarmuid O’Sullivan.

“You trust the man behind you, you trust the guy to the left and right. that’s the key to any defence. When you have six defenders, two midfielders and two wing-forwards coming back to nullify the goal threat or just surround opposition attackers, that’s just down to work rate. It’s down to the want and doing the right thing for the team.

“As a defence, are we pleased? Yes, 100 percent. Robert [Downey] hadn’t been in the team at the start of the year but he has taken his opportunity really, really well. Seán [O’Donoghue] and Niall [O’Leary] in both corners are two guys who have stood up. They’ve both stood up. 

“Ger Millerick is a guy who has had a lot of injuries of the past number of years. To come in and play as well as he has for us in the championship – okay, he picked up another injury there [hamstring], Mark Coleman and Tim [O’Mahony] have experience. We’ve shown great resolve back there.”

And, when it was put to him that Cork would be going in as underdogs against a Limerick side chasing a third title in four years, O’Sullivan pointed out that it felt as if the outcome was already decided in some quarters.

“Underdogs?” he asked, rhetorically.

If you had to listen to the television and everything written and said today lads, Limerick’s name is already etched on the cup. Where do we go from there?

“They’re the greatest team that have played the game over the last number of years so we’ll come up and see who we get on and we’ll throw what we can at them.”