Christy O'Connor on the questions Cork hurlers must answer to qualify from Munster

BEFORE last year’s league hurling semi-final against Kilkenny, Eoin Downey looked to have nailed down the full-back spot, bringing stability to a position that had revolved like a carousel over the previous few years.

In the three seasons from 2020-‘22, six different players were used in the full-back role, before Downey took command of the position last spring. In four league games against Limerick, Galway, Wexford and Kilkenny, Downey played with a level of authority and confidence that belied his youth and inexperience.

Then everything changed in the second half of the Kilkenny game, when Downey was red-carded, and the subsequent suspension ruled him out of Cork’s opening championship match against Waterford.

The one-match ban meant that Downey was able to play in the Cork U20’s Munster round-robin game against Limerick two days before that Waterford game. Yet the consistency Downey had found with the seniors during the spring, he never got back.

After starting wing-back in Cork’s second Munster round-robin game against Tipperary, Downey was withdrawn after 48 minutes and didn’t feature again for the rest of the summer. Losing his place was all the more frustrating again as Downey wasn’t able to play with the U20s in their Munster final win against Clare. The only solace to the senior’s championship being cut short was that Downey was able to return for the All-Ireland final U20 final against Offaly.

It’s all only conjecture now but what good did getting to a league semi-final do for Downey last year? What benefit was it to Cork? Despite Cork’s quest for a first league title in a quarter of a century, Pat Ryan’s side were better off losing to Kilkenny anyway that afternoon - a win would have meant a final against Limerick, and a whole load of risk in the process, which could have heavily contaminated Cork’s confidence and belief ahead of the Munster championship.

After Saturday’s win against Wexford, where Cork were denied a league semi-final by Kilkenny’s result against Waterford, Ryan said that a league semi-final would have been welcome to get game-time into the many returning players on the panel.

“If you get to a semi-final, that’s a great game,” said Ryan. “You get to a final and if you win it, it is brilliant. But if you lose it makes it very hard two weeks out from championship. So from our point of view we’d have liked the extra game. It would have been great for us going down playing Limerick.” 

Would it though? Have Cork not already got enough out of this league? 

Given their current form, they could have beaten Limerick – but would it be worth the risk either?

There is huge competition for places but if Ryan and his management think they know the outline of their best team now – which they should - they don’t need to be second-guessing themselves if things went wrong against Limerick. They’re much better off with a four-week uninterrupted run-in to the Waterford match.

LULLS

What did Cork want or need out of this year’s league? Consistency. To win tight matches. To eradicate the lulls in matches that hurt them so badly last summer. Did they get that? Yes and no.

They lost two tight matches and nearly lost a third. The lulls crippled them in two games and nearly did so in a third. How much can be read into two big wins against Offaly and Wexford?

Ryan declared himself pleased with the depth Cork have built over the spring. Alan Connolly, Robbie O’Flynn and Mark Coleman are back. Cork are in a much better place than they were five weeks before last year’s championship, especially physically and injury-wise. 

“That makes it really, really competitive,” said Ryan. “We’ve a hard job to pick the 26, a hard job to pick the 15.” 

An incredible 32 players started a league match during the campaign. Cork’s second 15 would nearly be as competitive as their first 15, but only 15 can start. Having so many players does allow for fluidity and squad rotation but what does that do for consistency? Has all the chopping and changing added to Cork’s inconsistency?

Most squads have also used the league to alternate their squad and give players sufficient game-time but most of those management teams can still name 13 or 14 of their starting team now. How many could Cork name? At most, 10. Other teams have started 30 players in every league game too, but they’re still only going to start the same 16-17 in every match.

If Cork hit a rocky patch against Waterford next month in their opening round-robin game, they have the luxury of being able to bring on four or five players as good as those that started the match. 

A number of those replacements could then start the Clare game seven days later.

Even if Cork play well against Waterford, and they name the same team for the Clare match, they still seem only one rocky performance away from making a raft of changes to try and get the balance and the combination right to gel it all together.

Brian Cody once famously said that he “never worried about having a settled team, as long as Kilkenny had a settled spirit”. 

Cork have that settled spirit but it’s impossible to compare the current Cork side to Kilkenny in their pomp under Cody - because Cork haven’t had that same bank of confidence and success built up to be able to consistently rotate players with the same conviction.

Ryan is right. Cork are in a good place. They have five uninterrupted weeks now to get into a better place. And they’ll need to be if they are to get out of Munster.