John Horgan on Cork v Limerick: Ben O'Connor's side have to be tuned on enemy turf 

There is no doubt that national league form continues to increase in relevance where the championship is concerned.

That applies in both codes and the finalists in hurling and football this time are odds on to have a major say in the destination of the Liam MacCarthy Cup and Sam Maguire trophy.

There is the odd exception of a league-winning team not making the desired statement thereafter, the most recent being Waterford in 2022, failing to get out of Munster.

The most recent double winners were Clare in 2024, while before them Limerick won the two big national prizes in 2019, 2020 and 2023.

So, for the most part, in the modern era, the league winners subsequently have had a very good championship.

Cork put themselves in the position of doing the double last season but came up well short in the All-Ireland final against Tipperary, the county that they had beaten in the league final a few months earlier.

Limerick or Cork will end up with the league title on Sunday evening and both are looked upon as being first and second in the list of All-Ireland contenders. Much to Tipp's amusement.

NO EASY TASK

It would certainly be a surprise if both are not involved at the business end of the campaign, although emerging from Munster will not be an easy task for either irrrespective of how Sunday goes.

But it’s first things first at the Gaelic Grounds on Sunday with stand tickets as difficult to get as they were for last July’s Cork and Tipperary showdown.

Many are of the opinion that the final should be taking place in Croke Park where 65,000 or so would be present, given stand tickets would so much more accessible, as against the 40,000 plus in Limerick.

A viewpoint exists too that the 1B final between Clare and Dublin should be at an alternative venue, given the demand. But it is what it is and both finals carry huge potential, the Cork-Limerick latest instalment heavily loaded for prospects.

Limerick might marginally carry the tag of favouritism but when these two collide, anything is possible and the games are often decided by a matter of inches.

It’s highly unlikely that we won’t have anything like a repeat of the football final last Sunday when Donegal simply dismantled Kerry.

Yes, Limerick won the regulation game but neither side had their heaviest artillery on display, which will certainly not be the case on Sunday.

Both team managements have had adequate time over the past few months to run the rule over the vast majority of the players that they selected on their extended panels before the commencement of the league.

The passage to the final has been quite similar for both Cork and Limerick. There was just the one loss for both, Limerick falling, rather surprisingly, to Waterford and Cork beaten in the Gaelic Grounds.

Of course, no great store is put into anything that occurs in the infancy of the season when the emphasis is more on experimentation.

But as the campaign ages, all counties try to get much nearer what their championship line-ups might be and that was the case in both in their final outing of the regulation campaign, Cork against Offaly and Limerick against Galway.

Cork got no test at all against the Faithful County while a one-time Limerick advantage of 11 points was whittled down to just two before they emerged victorious.

SETTLED

Both half-back lines seemed to be settled now with William O’Donoghue at number six flanked by Diarmuid Byrnes and Kyle Hayes, and the Cork mnagement sticking with the Downey brothers and Mark Coleman.

Ciarán Joyce was at full-back against Offaly and he’ll start there on Sunday to pick up Shane O’Brien or Aaron Gillane.

All counties have to contain players now who can quickly adapt to different roles and in Cork’s case, Rob Downey and Joyce could switch roles if the need arose.

We saw how effective Cathal O’Neill was for Limerick against Galway at left half-forward, delivering 1-6 and he’s one of Limerick’s most versatile players as, of course, is Cian Lynch and whoever picks up the latter will have to be on top of his game.

Free-taking is a huge factor in all games now. Aidan O’Connor has assumed those duties from Gillane, with Byrnes still effective from a longer distance.

When Patrick Horgan retired the smart money might have been on Darragh Fitzgibbon to take over from him in the placed ball duties but the management opted for Alan Connolly instead. With every passing game his confidence has grown and if every free-taker needs a good start, he certainly had one against Offaly, rifling over his first three efforts, none of which could be said were easy.

Sean O’Donoghue and Mark Coleman have been very prominent in the Cork defence and Coleman’s ability to secure important points is an added feature of his displays.

There will be key battles all over the field. William O’Donoghue at centre-back for Limerick against Shane Barrett will be just one of them.

Both counties have considerable options off the bench and there is fierce competition for starting places in both attacks.

The likelihood is that the management teams will go with experienced set-ups but in the Cork attack there must be at least two changes from last season, the retired Horgan and the injured Diarmuid Healy having to be replaced.

The latter would have been a definite starter in the half-forward line but, thankfully, as we have mentioned in previous columns, Ben O’Connor is not short of options.

In the last two major outings in the championship, both in the Munster championship the outcomes were starkly contrasting, Limerick hammering Cork in their round-robin encounter at the Gaelic Grounds to the tune of 16 points, a worrying scoreline at the time.

But a few weeks later it was an entirely story in the Munster final, Cork victorious in a penalty shootout which in a game of such magnitude is never an acceptable conclusion. But it was Cork’s day and full-marks to them.

FOOLISH

When Dublin defeated Limerick in the All-Ireland quarter-final, the school of thought might have been that this Limerick bunch of players were done. But that was a foolish presumption as we learned. Win or lose this weekend, they’ll be serious championship contenders again.

Cork have used this league well to recover from their All-Ireland trouncing, winning five out of six and have to be in a good place entering this league final.

A narrow loss for either on Sunday won’t really be of any great relevance but there is no doubt that John Kiely and Ben O’Connor will want to secure any bit of an edge that this game contains. It’s near impossible to nail down and it could be a long and late afternoon on the Ennis Road.

Our bias says a Cork victory.