John Horgan on hurling: New players could find it hard to break into Cork hurling team

What will the team be like for Sunday?

How many changes will there be, if any at all, depending on how things worked out in the previous game?

Those are just two of the questions that will be posed over the coming weeks and months in relation to the starting 15 Cork hurlers for their assignments in the national league and subsequently the Munster championship campaign.

Supporters of inter-county teams spend a lot of their time speculating. It makes for great debate, sometimes fiery stuff, on whether this player or that player should be starting.

Everybody is entitled to an opinion, more so those who travel the length and breadth of the country from one Sunday to the next supporting their counties.

Following your team is an expensive business these days, for Cork supporters away trips to Galway, Kilkenny, Wexford and so on hit the pockets hard but it's done because you want to do it, it's the hobby that one embraces.

That scenario applies in all counties, for some, the season is nowhere near as long as others and where hurling is concerned, if your county is not in the first three in the province, it's all over very quickly.

Across the GAA landscape currently, inter-county management teams are trialling a large number of players in pre-season competitions who they hope will catch their eye and might make an impact to such a degree that they will be retained for the league.

In fact, it could be said that this is one of the busiest times of the season for management teams with games in those pre-season competitions coming thick and fast.

And at the same time, a big eye has to be kept too on the third-level competitions, the hugely competitive Fitzgibbon Cup when players can put themselves in the spotlight with consistent, impressive displays.

MAKE OR BREAK

This time of the season, early and all as it is, can make or break a player's inter-county ambitions. If a county does not fare too well in the pre-season competition, there might be a challenge game or two organised to further enlighten the management.

The net is cast far and wide at this juncture in the season. In fact, a player or two might get a start with a county that a few might not even have heard about.

New Dublin football boss Ger Brennan revealed last week that he and his selectors had 130 players on their radar in trying to add greater depth to their squad.

As we have stated previously, many get the call but how many will get the nod?

In nearly all instances, it will be in the minority and there will be a realisation that most of them are not yet ready for graduation onto the elite stage.

For all counties, the emphasis is mostly on experimentation as quite a number of the established brigade don't appear until the start of the national league.

For a county with a new manager at the helm, the spotlight shines more brighter, the new players that he is introducing, those who don't make the cut, the tactics that he will employ and so on.

Ben O'Connor took charge for his first inter-county assignment last week against Limerick in the Munster League, fielding a hugely experimental unit.

In stark contrast, John Kiely fielded much more strongly with a number of All-Stars in the starting 15 and that was reflected in the outcome, a comprehensive victory for Limerick in a contest that was decided long before the end.

In the aftermath, O'Connor described the proceedings as a learning curve for his players. He certainly did not come out with the stock line, 'it was a good work-out for the lads' which is the terminology often used by managers this early in the season.

He did acknowledge that the task on the night was made all the more difficult because of the number of new players that started.

“If you are firing in two or three fellas, maybe they'll be helped with fellas around but when you are firing them in all together and playing for the first time as well but we are not making excuses.

“It shows we have a lot of work to do and I just said to the boys inside that it has happened to us all, there no point in saying it didn't.

“We just have to learn from it and come back stronger.''

HONEST

An honest appraisal from the new Cork boss.

At the time of penning this column the team to face Clare in Mallow last night in the second Munster League game had not been revealed and there may well have been a slight change in direction with some of the old guard being brought on board to provide a more experienced structure.

The pre-season competition will be just a footnote very shortly and thoughts will turn to the far more important business of the national league.

Cork are the holders of the secondary competition and it remains to be seen what the approach by the new management will be.

Will it be all hands on deck in trying to retain it or will everything be directed at the round-robin stage in Munster?

One way or the other it's potentially going to be a very difficult league campaign, six games with three at home, Waterford, Tipperary and Offaly, with the away games against Galway, Kilkenny and Limerick.

There's going to be no doubt that the new management are going to give some players their debuts, it's really a case of having to do that in the effort to embellish the squad for the championship campaign.

And if that is the case, those new players must feature in at least two games, maybe in one or two of the away games when the harder questions will be posed.

Intercounty hurling is a huge ask for new players, the physicality is at a completely different level and there were instances in the Gaelic Grounds last week when that was exhibited against Limerick.

Inter-county hurling is at an entirely different level altogether now and no matter how successful a player has been at U20 it's a chalk and cheese difference to what will transpire in the white heat of Munster.

Let's be honest, the likelihood is that the Cork starting 15 for the championship won't differ a whole pile from last season despite the All-Ireland final collapse.

The likes of Sean O'Donoghue, Niall O'Leary, Ciaran Joyce, Eoin Downey, Mark Coleman, Rob Downey, Darragh Fitzgibbon, Shane Barrett, Alan Connolly, Diarmuid Healy, Tim O'Mahony and Brian Hayes are going to be on the front grid to start again and maybe others too.

Micheál Mullins, Ballinora's Shane Kingston, Tommy O'Connell, and Barrs trio Ethan Twomey, Ben Cunningham, William Buckley, are among a good few more who will be in the equation too. The possibility is there that one or two not-so-familiar names will feature too.

Right now it's very much a wait and see situation and that's probably the case in most counties, who will be in, who won't be.

The seculation process is underway.