The ambition as always, according to manager Paul O’Donovan, is for Nemo Rangers to win a county every year, and Cork football’s standard-bearers restarted their seasonal quest with a deserved victory over gallant Dohenys in Brinny on Saturday.

It’s time for Nemo Rangers to get back on the horse.

Should Nemo secure an eighth All-Ireland crown this Saturday, there’ll be much stock placed on what the players endured during the month of December.

Nemo Rangers (Cork) 2-19 Slaughtneil (Derry) 1-14 (After extra-time): Snapshots from an encounter for the ages in Portlaoise: 24 minutes gone, Nemo desperately seeking their second wind after a dismal start and Tomas Ó Sé, 40 this summer, in possession down on the left wing. 

With each visit to Trabeg comes greater insight into the Nemo mindset.

Nemo Rangers manager Larry Kavanagh takes a straightforward view of tomorrow’s All-Ireland club semi-final; reproduce what took them past Dr Crokes in the Munster final and Nemo should be present at GAA HQ on St Patrick’s Day.

The best ever and the worst ever. So goes Paul Kerrigan’s description of Nemo’s last two Munster finals.

You would imagine, tactically, Nemo Rangers’ management will detail Alan Cronin to man-mark St Finbarr’s Stephen Sherlock from the off next Sunday in the replay of the Cork SFC final.

Hope. Lots of hope. Páirc Uí Rinn was awash with it on Monday evening last.

Tomás Ó Sé has described Sunday’s dramatic Munster club final finale as one of the cruellest “sucker-punches” he has ever endured as a player.

Dressing Rooms No 1 and No 2 are only feet apart at Mallow GAA’s stately Carrigoon complex, but the swing of a left foot yesterday daubed one in black and green despair, and turned the other into forever folk heroes in Tipperary.

It has always been an article of faith of Nemo Rangers they don’t ‘just’ win county titles.

Stradbally (Waterford) 0-5 Nemo Rangers (Cork) 1-13: Once showered and changed, the Stradbally players made the short walk from Fraher Field to The Park Hotel for a couple of well overdue pints.

Cork SFC semi-final

Cork boss Conor Counihan has made six changes for next Sunday’s McGrath Cup final against Tipperary in Clonmel from the side that overturned CIT in last weekend’s semi-final.

THIRD-LEVEL institution Cork IT has signed an agreement with the Cork county board which will see Jimmy Barry-Murphy’s Cork senior hurling panel base their training sessions at the campus in Bishopstown for the 2012 season.

TEN MONTHS after hobbling off in Pearse Stadium with a snapped cruciate ligament for the second time in his career, Colm O’Neill announced his return to the inter-county senior stage in style yesterday in Páirc Uí Rinn.

JANUARY is a month to impress at senior inter-county level.

CORK boss Conor Counihan has handed out four senior inter-county debuts and brought Colm O’Neill back for his first game for the side since suffering cruciate damage last March, for Sunday’s McGrath Cup quarter-final against Clare in Páirc Uí Rinn.

ATTACKER Kevin O’Sullivan is set to return to the Cork senior football squad for their 2012 seasonal opener in the McGrath Cup against Clare on Sunday.

CORK attacker Colm O’Neill is poised to make his inter-county comeback during next month’s McGrath Cup competition after being sidelined since March with a torn cruciate ligament.

TO apply some context to this headline result in Fermoy on Saturday, one should underline that this is only the second Cork SFC game Nemo Rangers have lost over the past five years.

TWELVE months ago it was the Kilmurry-Ibrickane supporters deliriously celebrating a famous All-Ireland club semi-final victory in the Gaelic Grounds.

THERE IS a growing public perception that this season’s AIB Munster Club Football Championship is destined to climax in a Crokes v Nemo Rangers face-off, but both clubs still have some work to do before that glamour pairing becomes a reality.

THE natural order of club football matters on Leeside has been restored.