CORK will hope things turn out all-white in FBD Semple Stadium in Thurles today.

Having lost the toss for colours, the Rebels will don their change jerseys against Galway but it’s not something that bothers anyone in the camp.

“No, it’s not an issue,” manager Kieran Kingston says.

“We use those jerseys all the time in training. Obviously, you’d like to be in red but it won’t have any bearing on Saturday.”

Something of more import, in the view of the boss, is the strong level of travelling support and the extra morale boost they can bring.

“To be fair, the Cork supporters are outstanding,” Kingston says.

“I’ve said that before – 99.99 percent, even when we were having bad days, they rallied behind the team and supported the team and backed the team. The players feed off that.

Of course, you’re going to have 0.01 percent that won’t rally, but that’s the same in every county. 

"It’s when you’re going through the bad days that you really see the supporters coming out and supporting the team, when things are going against you, and you need them in that scenario.

“You need them in places like Antrim last week, it was fantastic to hear the Cork fans chanting, ‘Rebels!’ coming down the stretch and that doesn’t go unnoticed by the players or by anyone.

“We spoke about that afterwards – people have travelled huge distances at huge cost, in terms of time and money, to support the team playing Antrim in Antrim and that’s massively appreciated.

MOMENTUM

“Then, you’ve the third aspect of it, where you have momentum like we do now, you want the supporters to carry you. It’s an extra man coming down the stretch.

“Any game you play, you’ll have patches where you’re in control and patches where you’re not. When you’re not in control, the supporters help you to get it back.”

It’s a quick turnaround after playing Antrim last weekend, which brings its own challenges in terms of preparation, but Kingston is looking forward to it.

“The Antrim game involved a lot in terms of travelling and an overnight,” he says, “six or seven hours on a bus and all that.

“It wasn’t a simple game in many respects, getting there and all that. The objective was to get in there, get the job done and get out of there, without any injuries if we could, and prepare for the next day.

“Against a gale, really, in the first half, we didn’t put ourselves in a great position. There were a lot of simple errors and that, but we won the second half by 12 points. We were always comfortable from half-time on and that was important for us, to get a bit of confidence after the first half.

It was an exceptionally strong wind, a tight pitch, a partisan crowd and you’re going to get that up at that pitch. We expected that and we got it and every team that has gone up has got the same.

“The key thing after is just recovery. We got together Monday night but could do very little, really. Fellas were tired after a long journey – it’s difficult to quantify what the actual journey up and down takes out of you, outside of the game.

“This week really is about, rest, recovery and getting a bit of freshness back into the group ahead of a massive match on Saturday.”