In the Croke Park dressing room, it became real for the Kanturk hurlers. Anthony Nash turned to Lorcan McLoughlin and gave the feeling a name.

John Fintan Daly has known AIB All-Ireland club success at Croke Park at a higher level in the past; namely with Milltown-Castlemaine in the 2012 intermediate decider.

Sunday morning in Knocknagree. Two women, one in a pink dressing gown pulling gingerly on a cigarette, stand nattering at a front door. All else is quiet.

All-Ireland Club JAFC semi-final: Knocknagree (Cork) 2-9 - Naomh Colmcille (Donegal) 0-7

John Fintan Daly played a straight bat ahead of Knocknagree’s Munster junior football final, if you remember. He pointed out that Cork clubs had a dismal record in the competition against Kerry opposition but he believed in his own side and said as much.

Knocknagree (Cork) 1-17 Dromid Pearses (Kerry) 2-11: Knocknagree wrote themselves into the history books at Mallow yesterday when they collected their first AIB Munster Club JFC title.

In tomorrow’s Munster junior club football final you have a classic derby: Knocknagree of Cork versus Dromid Pearses of Kerry.

Knocknagree advanced to a Munster Club JFC final with Dromid Pearses yesterday after defeating Waterford’s Sliabh gCua St Mary’s in impressive fashion at Mallow.

John Fintan Daly jnr and Matthew Dilworth produced brilliant attacking performances as Knocknagree bridged a 26-year gap, landing the Cork JAFC title, overcoming Erin’s Own in the final yesterday.

Pádraig Kearns knew what he was letting himself in for. Mind you, knowing what the task entails doesn’t make the job any easier.

He’ll stay strictly professional, save maybe the odd colourful remark, but at least one Kerry voice in Killarney tomorrow will be shouting for Cork. And it’s a very familiar voice to Cork radio listeners. C103 match commentator and raconteur Paudie Palmer.

Flagrant bias! Blazing prejudice! Local radio!

Damian Murphy played like a captain and he spoke like a leader of men too even if he did describe himself as “over the hill and overweight” in the midst of his speech from the Hogan Stand.

MILLTOWN-Castlemaine held off the determined Craigbane challenge and secured a Croke Park date in three weeks’ time.

It’s been a year where sportstars at home and abroad have again had plenty to say for themselves. Fintan O’Toole and John Riordan picked out their best offerings

HE has accumulated plenty honours at divisional and county level but it has taken 26 championship seasons before Joe Daly has realised that dream in the provincial arena.

THIS was the pre-match routine.

A GOOD first half paved the way for Milltown-Castlemaine to reach the Munster club IFC final at Mallow yesterday as they withstood a strong second-half Newmarket comeback.

THE young north Cork footballer killed in a tragic car crash over the weekend has been described by one of his coaches as the “next big household name in Gaelic football”.

IN early 1977, near where Duhallow and East Kerry are split by the River Blackwater, a small hostelry hosted a low-key meeting with grand ambitions.