Cork test awaits Tipperary as Bryan O'Mara continues to set the standard

Saturday evening at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh offers Cork an immediate chance at revisiting last summer’s All-Ireland final. It may still be February, and it might only be the league.

But it would be foolish to expect anything other than a statement from Cork. Champions Tipperary will arrive on Leeside with momentum, and with a clear idea of what awaits.

Two rounds into the league, Tipp already look as though little has been lost in the months since July, and Cork look determined to bring down everyone they meet in their pursuit of atonement.

“It's never easy to go down to Páirc Uí Chaoimh, we've got some fair hidings down there,” Bryan O’Mara said after Tipperary’s win over Offaly last week. “We're looking forward to the challenge of it again on a Saturday evening in Cork.

“It's one of those games you want to be playing in. They're motoring well, they always are. 

Serious side, so we just have to be really up for it.

Sunday’s dismantling of Offaly in Tullamore was the latest indication that the All-Ireland champions are carrying early punch, and nowhere was that more evident than in the full-back line, where O’Mara set the tone.

The pillar of last summer’s triumph – the sweeper who haunted Cork in that second half – he was immovable at full-back against Offaly. His opposite, Ciarán Cleary, managed just a single shot over the 70 minutes. And even that drifted harmlessly wide.

Expectations have risen for Tipperary now, and they’ve got the added responsibility of trying to defend an All-Ireland title for the first time since 1965.

CLARITY

But for all that external pressure, the mood inside the camp is a far cry from where it sat not two seasons ago. There is a clarity now. About what they are, and what they owe the people who follow them.

And it makes for a much better dressing room atmosphere.

“It is I guess,” O’Mara said. “Look, Tipp people mightn’t have followed us much in 2024 but we weren't giving them much to follow.

Some of the stuff we were playing, I wouldn't have paid my €40 to go in the gate.

“We just have to make sure that they're getting value for following us. As long as we're putting in a hard effort every day, even if we don't get the result,” he explained. “You can, not get the result, in the right way. If that happens, I think Tipp people are happy as long as we put good effort in and they're happy.” Wearing the no. 3 jersey on Sunday and stationed against Offaly’s target man Cleary, it was a different examination for O’Mara, but one which he thrived in.

“Being in full back, just ball raining in, it was a different thing to try and deal with,” he said. “On another day, a lot of them would stick and a lot of the breaks would go to the likes of [Adam] Screeney and Charlie Mitchell and these lads.

“You're not used to dealing with it [long ball in for the target man]. You're probably used to a two-man inside full-forward line and darting out to different positions.

“All the teams seem to be doing that for a few years, but the next team to perfect that long ball in will probably get a lot of joy off it, like Cork did last year for long stretches,” O’Mara explained. “You need that big man inside and a target man and it works really well for some teams. It just causes absolute carnage when it goes in.”