Cork v Offaly: Darragh Fitzgibbon grateful to be on the pitch again rather than in the stands

Often, for a player the worst part about being injured is the matchday and having to watch powerless as his or her team-mates go about their task.

As a team captain in a final, there could be a risk of such feelings being amplified but Cork skipper Darragh Fitzgibbon did not have such heightened frustrations for last Sunday week’s Munster SHC decider.

Cork lost to Limerick by a point at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh, with Mark Coleman leading the side as Fitzgibbon saw out his second successive game following an appendectomy. The Charleville man’s suffering was not greatly increased by having to sit and watch, though.

“I probably consider myself a good spectator, to be honest,” he says, “I’d be calm enough.

“Obviously I’ve experienced what the lads were going through a couple of times … I wasn’t roaring or shouting or anything like that. Probably going back to pre-being a Cork player, going to the matches, just being a spectator as a kid, watching it with your dad or your grandad.

“It’s built the appetite definitely to come back. You only get a few years at it, so you want to try and make the most of it while you can.”

The hope is that Fitzgibbon will have recovered sufficiently to play some part as Cork face into Sunday’s All-Ireland SHC quarter-final against Offaly at FBD Semple Stadium (3.30pm).

The general consensus is that Ben O’Connor’s side did play to their best in the Munster final – in such a landscape, a one-point defeat can be framed as a positive of sorts, making it easier to process.

“Yeah, obviously initially you're obviously very disappointed because you've lost a Munster final,” Fitzgibbon says, “but during our preparation we had kind of taken into consideration what was going to happen in the Munster final.

“You're going to win or you're going to lose and you have to refocus as much as you can because if you're on the losing side you only have two weeks, whereas if you're on the winning side you kind of have four weeks to get the bodies right and to regroup and go again like last season.”

Cork will be big favourites against an Offaly side featuring players who have played in both the Christy Ring and Joe McDonagh Cups. That they are in the position they are is testament to renewed hard work and, when asked what changes he might suggest to the John Meyler-led review group, Fitzgibbon is hopeful that hurling’s footprint can be further increased.

“I think the game in general, as in the sport, the way it's being played, is at an incredible level,” he says.

“It keeps getting better and better every season – I think teams playing Liam MacCarthy keep getting the best out of each other and keep pushing each other.

“I suppose like the biggest thing and the most obvious thing is trying to get that that level to as many counties as we can throughout the country. I think, initially, when you see a hurling review committee and people are starting to talk about rules and things like that, I think the game is perfect, I don't think there needs to be any rule-changes made to the game.

“It's just exposing it to the other, so-called ‘weaker’ counties and trying to get them playing to as high a level as they can would be great for sport and it'd be great for the country in general.

“It's a fantastic product that we have and to try and grow and improve it as much as we can would be the goal, really.”

• eir Ambassador Darragh Fitzgibbon marking eir’s continued support of the All-Ireland SHC and the fourth year of the Poc Tapa Challenge, a competition open to every GAA club in the country, where the fastest team wins €5,000 for their club and the chance to play in Croke Park on semi‑final day. To enter, visit @eir.Ireland on Instagram. eir is recognised by Opensignal as having Ireland’s No.1 5G network coverage.