Cork look for good omens as they aim to end semi-final and Croke Park droughts

Cork will hope that the 31st man on the pitch serves as a good omen as they look to end some unwanted sequences at Croke Park on Saturday.

The Rebels take on Mayo in the All-Ireland SFC quarter-final (throw-in 4pm), seeking to reach the semi-finals of the competition for the first time since 2012.

A qualifier win over Galway a year later was the county’s last senior championship victory at GAA headquarters – veteran Brian Hurley is the only survivor from that game – with the 2015 league semi-final victory against Donegal the last triumph of any kind in Dublin 3.

The following season saw Cork relegated from Division 1 in the league and it took until this year for the county to return to the top flight: a win over Tyrone secured promotion and the referee that day was Martin McNally, who will also be the man in the middle on Saturday.

The Monaghan native also took charge of the victory over Roscommon in the round-robin stage of last year’s All-Ireland SFC.

A 2012 defeat to Donegal was Cork’s last appearance at the semi-final stage – it was the seventh time in eight years that they had made it to the last four but the best managed in the 14 years since have been quarter-finals in 2013, 2014 (losing to Mayo) and 2023, as well reaching the ‘Super 8s’ in 2019. 

In both 2020 and 2021, when the old-style straight knockout system was in place, Cork lost the Munster final and so were in the last eight by default.

Since the Donegal win in 2015, Cork have come off second-best in eight games at Croke Park – against the Ulster county in the 2016 championship, Dublin in 2015 (league final), 2019, 2022 and last year, Tyrone in 2019, Derry in 2023 and this year’s Division 2 league final loss to Meath.

Saturday’s game in followed by the meeting of Kerry and Tyrone at 6.15pm while on Sunday the venue hosts the meetings of Louth and Monaghan (1.45pm) and Dublin and Galway (4pm).

The semi-final draw will take place after the latter clash and, as has been the practice throughout this year’s championship, repeat pairings will be avoided. 

That means that, if Cork and Kerry were both to win, they would be up against one of the Sunday winners as they could not play each other.