Diarmuid O'Sullivan: Cork have good platform from 2021 but must build on it

IT’S almost 24 years since Cork – captained by a teenage Diarmuid O’Sullivan – last won the national hurling league title.

The drought was almost ended last year as victory in the last round-robin game against Galway would have seen Cork finish top of Group A. With no space for a league final, any championship meeting between the winners of the two groups would have doubled up as the decider. Kilkenny won Group B and the Rebels overcame the Cats in the All-Ireland semi-final.

However, Cork didn’t beat Galway and were leapfrogged by Waterford and Tipperary, finishing level on five points with Limerick. As they had lost to the Shannonsiders at the Gaelic Grounds, Kieran Kingston’s side ended up ranked fifth of six.

Now, as they face into a new campaign, welcoming Clare to Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Saturday evening, how important is a strong showing? Cork selector Diarmud O’Sullivan naturally frames things in terms of the championship, but makes the point that a championship attitude is forged before that.

“It was a fairly strange one last year,” he says, “we were 11 minutes from finishing on top of the league.

“The bottom line is that, today, we’re three months out from championship and the goal for us all is to be in the best position that we can be for that day.

“In the meantime, we have the national league – what’s the national league for the Cork senior hurlers? Really, it’s a building block for us, identifying what we have and seeing if we can add to it.

“Obviously, I’m ambitious, Kieran is ambitious, the whole group is ambitious – but not only that, we’re unbelievably competitive as well. Every game, regardless of the 15 that start or who the opposition is, we’ll be doing everything in our power to go and win that game.

“That’s the way our group is built and I think that’s the mentality we have to take. We want to use the league for that, to get ready for three months’ time.”

PROGRESS

Saturday will be Cork’s first competitive outing since the All-Ireland final defeat to Limerick. While that 16-point reversal was a day to forget, it shouldn’t overshadow the big strides made by Cork last year.

“We’re taking huge positives from 2021,” O’Sullivan says.

“Okay, we didn’t get what we wanted at the end of it but there are a lot of other teams in a similar scenario to ourselves.

“We were delighted with our development. Fair enough, we didn’t get the reward but that’s parked now and we have dealt with it. There’s no reason for us to go back to that game or that day.

“It’s move forward for us now. Obviously, there have been a number of changes to our panel – we have a very fluid panel and a young group who are working extremely hard at present. That’s what’s important for us.”

Eoin Cadogan, Bill Cooper and Colm Spillane have retired, with the panel refreshed by the addition of graduates from the last two All-Ireland U20 victories, while Pat Mulcahy and Noel Furlong are on board as selectors.

“It’s good to have guys with success coming through,” O’Sullivan says.

“We’ve lost three guys, I’d have immense time for them for what they’ve done for Cork over the last number of years and the dedication and commitment that they’ve given.

To lose their experience is tough but the panel is young and it’s backboned by the success of the underage groups.

“But that won’t guarantee us anything – as we’re experiencing at the moment, we’re going through an extremely difficult period to manage. We’ve 23 players tied up with the Fitzgibbon, so that’s a huge challenge.”

The players are at least getting high-quality exposure in the Fitzgibbon, albeit without Cork being able to do much integrated work right now. Avoiding an over-loading of those young players is also something that has to be taken into consideration.

“It’s a balancing act,” O’Sullivan says.

“We didn’t enter the Munster League in order to protect these lads and for their welfare during January.

“If we were to train them and they were to play Fitzgibbon Cup, there’s a duty of care on us to make sure that we accommodated these lads properly – that we were getting our fair crack of the whip and the colleges were getting their fair share.

“I think that was very important for us and then you add the fact that new members of management and the backroom team have come in.

“It’s been a difficult period for us but I think the group has settled down well. The new members of the backroom team and management are working really hard to build relationships with everyone and at this present time that’s all we can ask for.”