John Cleary looking at bigger picture as Cork play Tipperary in McGrath Cup 

Cork manager John Cleary isn’t putting a huge significance on the McGrath Cup this year as his side play their first game in the competition tomorrow night. 

The Rebels face Tipperary in Cappawhite with throw-in at 7pm. The pre-season tournament returns after it was suspended last year for 12 months.

The Tipperary game is quickly followed by the visit of Limerick to Páirc Uí Rinn on Sunday (2pm) and if Cork are successful over the next week, they will proceed to the final.

The Premier County beat Limerick last Friday in the opening match in Group B.

Under Cleary’s guidance, Cork have won the McGrath Cup in 2023 and ’24. It didn't run last year.

“The McGrath Cup will give a chance for developing players, but the very fact that it clashes with the Sigerson Cup kind of inhibits that a bit,” the Castlehaven clubman says.

“There’s an awful lot on for those players and young players but look, the fixtures are there, we’ll play them and they’re competitive fixtures.

“Otherwise maybe you’re trying to scurry around and get challenge matches and things like that. We hope to try a lot of fringe players and development players in the McGrath Cup. A lot of them are students, so that’s probably not going to be possible.

"We have a big squad, we haven't narrowed it down yet. The McGrath Cup should give us a chance to look at lads. We have found in other years that you may want to blood a fella in the league, but that's too serious for that. It's probably not fair to throw someone in at the deep end. 

"The McGrath Cup should be the platform to do that, that's not the case with the Sigerson Cup. We just have to see how they perform in our in-house games and things like that."

Cleary isn’t beating around the bush when it comes to the McGrath Cup. Cork’s aim is clear for this year and that is to be in the promotion mix in Division 2 of the league. 

Cavan are the opponents first day out at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh in under three weeks’ time on Sunday, January 25.

“Our sole focus now is on Cavan on the last weekend of January, that’s our focus,” the Cork boss said.

“We felt maybe in years gone by that we needed to get wins under our belt and the McGrath Cup was a good starting point.

“That box is ticked. We see the bigger picture now. The start of the league is that. This is the last year of the McGrath Cup really. It was bulldozed through for this season from maybe the likes of Ulster and maybe Connacht to boost gate receipts or whatever before the league.

“But again, I would like to use the pre-season competition if you could use it for the purpose that maybe we would like it to be used for. 

"And at this stage, I don't think we can because, you know, physically we can't because like we're not going to pull players away from their college teams as they're playing Sigerson Cup. We've got to use other players.” 

Cork’s opponents tomorrow night in the shape of Tipperary will be waiting in the long grass in April when the championship comes around.

They are in the semi-final waiting for the winners of Cork and Limerick in the Munster quarter-final.

“If we could even blood two or three players and see where we're at and look, the competitive nature in everyone, we don't want to lose any games.

“But the McGrath Cup is not where our focus is on at the moment.”