Crunching the numbers on appearances for Cork in hurling league
Cork's Dáire O'Leary intercepts a pass to Kilkenny's Eoin Cody during the Allianz HL Division 1A game at UPMC Nowlan Park earlier this month. Picture: Ray McManus/Sportsfile
Thirty-three players used, 31 as starters, and still top of the table with a place in the final almost assured.
It certainly could not be said that Ben O’Connor and his Cork management have not used the current national league campaign as a test-bed to assess new players and combination.
There is a wide range of involvement, from Dáire O’Leary’s 325 minutes of a possible 350 down to Brian Keating’s late cameo as he earned his debut away to Galway, with a lot of variance in between. For instance, Robbie O’Flynn’s 48 minutes leave his as the player with the fourth-lowest quantity but they were spread across four substitute appearances; William Buckley started three of the five games to date and almost played the entirety of all of them, logging 204 minutes.
That O’Leary tops the charts is interesting for a few reasons. While he was not part of the panel in 2024, he was given his debut by Kieran Kingston in 2022 and established himself quickly only to suffer a costly injury in the league semi-final win over Kilkenny.
He is the only player chosen to start all of Cork’s matches so far and, while others have been tried in different positions or lines, he has been selected at full-back each time.
Eoin Downey, who held the number 3 jersey for most of the 2024 championship, winning an All-Star, and all of 2025, has been used exclusively at wing-back, with the other full-back line duties entrusted to Niall O’Leary, Seán O’Donoghue, Eoin Roche and Ger Millerick.
When, in 2021, injured forced Dáire O’Leary to miss the All-Ireland U20 final against Galway, Ciarán Joyce was chosen to play at full-back, though the Tribesmen’s two-man full-forward line meant the Castlemartyr man was able to operate as a sweeper.
There have been suggestions that Joyce is worth looking at on the edge of the square but his two outing since recovering from injury have been at centre-back against Kilkenny and midfield last Saturday in Limerick.
With a game against Offaly and a likely final to come – as well as this week’s training camp in Portugal – there are some opportunities to evaluate other options before the Munster SHC opener against Tipperary, though O’Leary has done well and been rewarded.
Of the 36-player squad named at the outset, four players have yet to see game-time – third-choice goalkeeper Brion Saunderson, Darragh O’Sullivan, Ben Cunningham and Pádraig Power. Barry Walsh was not on that list as he is still U20 but he has been part of the set-up throughout and his starts in two of the tougher games on paper show the esteem in which he is held by management.
Dáire O’Leary (5 starts, 0 sub appearances); Darragh Fitzgibbon (4+1); Patrick Collins (4), Tommy O’Connell (4), Alan Connolly (4), Eoin Downey (4); Niall O’Leary (3+1); Shane Barrett (4); Seán O’Donoghue (3+1); William Buckley (3); Brian Hayes (2+2); Tim O’Mahony (2+2); Robert Downey (3); Mark Coleman (3); Cormac O’Brien (2+1);Ger Millerick (2+1); Ciarán Joyce (2); Declan Dalton (3+1); Barry Walsh (2);Diarmuid Healy (2); Eoin Roche (2+1); Micheál Mullins (2+2); Hugh O’Connor (1+3); Brian Roche (2); Alan Walsh (1+2); Séamus Harnedy (1+1); Ethan Twomey (1+1); Paudie O’Sullivan (1), Damien Cahalane (1); Robbie O’Flynn (0+4); Shane Kingston (1); Brian O’Sullivan (1); Brian Keating (0+1).
App?
