Cork Hurling: Ballygunner survived their scare in Waterford but plenty of road to run yet on Leeside

By the end of this week, half the entrants will be out of the running for the Cork Hurling Championships. 

At Premier Senior level, six clubs plus Imokilly will remain in contention for the Seán Óg Murphy Cup.

For now, all 12 still harbour dreams of making it out of the group, even if some are more grounded by thoughts of avoiding relegation play-offs.

The numbers are starting to whittle down across the province. Eleven of the 12 teams up in Limerick are mathematically still in the running.

Tipperary are embarking on the knockout rounds with 10 teams involved, starting with a blockbuster preliminary quarter-final between pre-championship favourites Loughmore-Castleiney and Holycross-Ballycahill on Saturday.

In Clare, three of the five clubs to win the Canon Hamilton Cup so far this decade – Sixmilebridge, Ballyea, and Feakle – were knocked out in the group stage. Eight teams remain in the quarter-final mix.

Kerry, at the start of August, and now Waterford have already crowned their champions.

Abbeydorney will head to meet Tadhg de Búrca’s Clashmore-Kinsalebeg in the first confirmed Munster Championship fixture of 2026. That game will open the Intermediate competition on November 1st.

Ballygunner have to wait 11 weeks for their next match, but they are already just an hour away from a ninth consecutive Munster final appearance.

The All-Ireland kingpins will host the Limerick champions in a November 15th semi-final after clinging on for a 13th consecutive Waterford title.

Their opponents, Fourmilewater, were appearing in their first-ever final and had never beaten the Gunners in the championship. 

Although it ultimately ended in defeat, they may well have laid down a template for teams seeking to take on the city giants.

Manager Jason Ryan credited Fourmile with preventing Ballygunner from keeping their heads up to pick out passes and shutting down their favourite channels. 

The challengers also created a steady supply of chances with their running power and deliveries into targetman Seán Walsh.

But it was their manic intensity which should inspire teams seeking to upset the odds next weekend. That frenetic work rate had Ballygunner rattled for long stretches of the Déise decider.

None of Newcestown, Douglas, Fr O’Neills, Bride Rovers, Kanturk, or Newtownshandrum will be quite as long odds as Fourmilewater were. 

But with unseeded teams looking to take down their seeded adversaries, a similar dynamic will exist in a handful of those fixtures between some traditional bluebloods and those looking to pull off an upset.

All six seeded teams at Premier Senior prevailed in round 2. Will it happen again in round 3? If it does, we’ll have the same seven teams in the knockout rounds as 2025. That hasn’t occurred in back-to-back years under the current system.

For those looking to claim a scalp, the words of Fourmilewater manager Dick O’Keeffe were instructive.

“We knew that we had to get in close to them, not give them any room,” he said. “Every time the ball hit the ground, we had to come out. Our turnover-tackle (stat) was something like 26-10 in the first half.

“We put them under all sorts of pressure. We had their management struggling to make changes on the field. They didn’t know what they were going to do, which is what we wanted. We wanted them to be thinking about us.

“A lot of teams take on Ballygunner and they change their game structure completely, but at no stage were we going to do that.

“We knew we had the game that could trouble Ballygunner and we didn’t get drawn into match-ups or any of that stuff on the field.” 

Refreshed

Whoever emerges as Cork champions will have to go through the Clare and Tipperary representatives, both on Leeside, if they are to encounter Ballygunner or the Limerick holders in a provincial decider this winter. The Gunners could be a much-improved outfit by then.

“Last year, we made really good use of that time and got a nice bit of work done,” said their manager Jason Ryan. “We felt that it helped us massively.

“It's actually a real pre-season because for an awful lot of club players who are playing inter-county, they go straight from inter-county, try to have a few days of downtime, maybe go away on a bit of a holiday, and then they're straight back into it with their clubs.

“If they're carrying injuries, they get very little conditioning done. 

This is your first window that you can really get a nice bit of work done with the guys who are playing inter-county and to try to improve their physical conditioning.” 

Patrick Fitzgerald, Pauric Mahony, Dessie Hutchinson, and Mark Hartley were mentioned among those who will benefit from the break, while All-Ireland minor champions like Jack Power and Cormac Spain could yet come into the mix.

“Things will be shook up a little bit now as well regarding game time for different players,” Ryan added.