Cork GAA Talking Points: Footballers must grab league chance but hurlers know first two games in Munster dictate everything
GRABBING YOUR CHANCE: Cork and Waterford collided in the last round of the Munster Hurling Championship last summer when both sides had their destiny in their hands... Picture: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile
We've been here before with the Cork footballers.
In the summer of 2024, John Cleary's side had two victories in the All-Ireland group stages and faced Tyrone with the chance to secure a quarter-final berth. On a double-bill with the hurlers in Tullamore, Cork were beaten and ended up coming third in their group on scoring difference before losing away to Louth in a preliminary quarter-final. A real setback.
On Sunday afternoon, if they win or draw in Omagh, Cork will seal a top-two finish in Division 2. They haven't been this consistent in the league, outside of their unbeaten stint in Division 3, for 11 years. Apart from a drubbing in Derry, they've played very well this spring and got the supporters on board.
This is one of the biggest games for the Rebels this decade and it's up to them to embrace the challenge.
Pádraig Joyce and Jack O'Connor got plaudits for releasing Galway and Kerry players for club action last weekend. Any footballers who didn't get significant game-time in the national league clashes pulled on their club geansaís.
It was the same scenario in Cork lately, with Brian Hurley and David Buckley to the fore for Castlehaven and Newcestown last Sunday, while Ben Cunningham, Brian O'Sullivan and Brian Keating were among those to shine on the hurling front seven days earlier. It's a no-brainer in terms of keeping players sharp and enthusiastic.
There had been issues with freeing up extended panellists for their clubs before; in recent years, it's been more fluid with Cork squads. The right balance keeps everyone invested.
Waterford's marquee forward Dessie Hutchinson made the case this week for a return to the old-school provincial hurling format.
"I love that buzz of going and playing a knock-out game," he explained.
The Déise have a poor record in the round-robin series yet reached the business end of the championship in 2020 and '21. Their season was over by the June Bank Holiday weekend in recent years so you can understand Hutchinson's argument on a base level.
"I know it’s easy for us to say in Waterford when we haven’t got out of the provincial series in a few years but as Waterford people, we thrive on knock-out hurling. It’s something I grew up watching, I loved going to it."
Yet Waterford put themselves in the position to emerge from Munster in 2022, '24, when a draw at Cusack Park would have eliminated Cork, and last summer but couldn't get the 'knock-out' wins they needed. They defeated Clare in the opening round in 2025 but never built on it.
"If we won that game against Clare and it was knockout, we would have been into an All-Ireland series, and that’s just the way it is. You have to look at a whole different area there but for me knockout hurling is where you really get the juices flowing.”
There's no chance of the lucrative provincial group format being abandoned so it's definitely about getting the mindset right.
They'll tear into those matches and empty the tank in both before a couple of weeks off and a trip to Walsh Park.
You can afford a couple of shanky displays and still get back on track as Clare and Tipp proved the last two seasons. Every county has their destiny in their own hands...
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