Ray Delaney delighted with UCC's competition for places

With two trophies secured, UCC are facing into the upcoming Electric Ireland Fitzgibbon Cup in good shape and manager Ray Delaney is looking forward to tough decisions.

Having won the Higher Education Hurling League in early December, the college side overcame Cork by a point in the Canon O’Brien Cup at the Mardyke on Sunday, William Buckley scoring the late winner in a 2-18 to 2-17 triumph.

With UCC’s Kilkenny and Tipperary contingents absent and some Cork players out with illness and injury, it was a chance to test other players and Delaney was impressed.

“It's a fantastic preparation,” he says, “and a lot of guys, I suppose, being honest about it, that we mightn't have thought about starting.

“I always say to any team I'm ever involved with, don't ever make the players that are not here better than what you think they are.

“It was important that all of these turn up and make it hard. We're playing MTU on Thursday week, so it's all about that game now and we've some job picking a team after that.”

As well as UCC places up for grabs, some in red and black were seeking to show their wares in front of the new Cork management and that too served as a motivation.

“I said it to them before the game, there's a bunch in our dressing room who might have wanted to be in the other dressing room,” Delaney says, “and there was a couple who might not have been called in and feel that they should have been called in.

“Everybody had something to prove and I don't think anyone left themselves down.”

It’s a good situation to be in ahead of a hectic Fitz campaign which will see them host a Cork derby in the group stage before clashing with Garda College.

“We start on January 8, the final is February 13,” Delaney says, “so it's sort of week on week on week.

“In fairness to the higher education out this year, they've put the final in Croke Park, which is a fantastic carrot to aim for, but again, it's easy to talk about Croke Park and all this.

“You have to get there first. You have to win your matches.”

To do that, they will need squad depth. On Sunday, they were without Brian Keating, Hugh O’Connor and Timmy Wilk but Delaney is hopeful of their return.

“Brian has a chest infection and Hugh O'Connor has a chest infection,” he says, “Timmy is after getting the stitches out of his hand, so they all are back.

“We have guys from different counties that were not released on Sunday for different reasons, so yeah, we're in a good place - about ten or so coming back, potentially.

“With the Fitzgibbon, you give a list, number 1-35, and we had 19 tog out on Sunday, so there's a lot of guys coming back."