The conversation lasted no more than two minutes. Eamonn Ryan didn’t take much convincing.

Such has been their dreadful inconsistency in recent years, any analysis of the Cork footballers tends to yo-yo from one extreme to the other.

Before the door of Dressing Room No 3 underneath Semple Stadium’s Old Stand closed towards us, the first four of Liam Kearns’ words to his numbed Tipperary players seeped out.

Before the door of Dressing Room No 3 underneath Semple Stadium’s Old Stand closed towards us, the first four of Liam Kearns’ words to his numbed Tipperary players seeped out.

Somewhere, somehow Cork is haemorrhaging, or squandering, an abundance of football talent, writes Colm Cooper. 

Since Conor Counihan departed as Cork manager almost five years ago, three different managers have presided over 54 games and used 76 players — and not once put the same team out in successive games. Eoghan Cormican crunches the numbers.

The Cork footballers will enjoy a seven-week run-in to their Munster SFC semi-final on June 3.

The evenings are that bit brighter, all the hurt and disappointment of last year is long forgotten, hope is back in the hearts of supporters in every corner of the country. There is a road to some kind of glory for everyone. This could be the year.

Cork GAA chairman Ger Lane has given tacit approval to an independent company, featuring current and former inter-county players, which is set to begin a round of US fund-raising initiatives aimed at better resourcing the Cork senior footballers and hurlers.

Former Cork coach and Laois footballer Billy Sheehan is being lined up as part of Offaly manager Stephen Wallace’s backroom team.

Stephen Barry talks to the Cork football captain on why it takes a village of volunteers to raise a Paul Kerrigan.

It hasn’t always been the way of Cork GAA to sidestep intrigue and personality in the matter of team management appointments, but the absence of both in the speedy confirmation of Ronan McCarthy as the new coach to the senior footballers represents a positive in itself.

Senior personnel associated with the Cork senior county camogie and men’s football teams have written a letter to the editor of the Irish Examiner praising the decision of the Cork GAA County board to condemn the use of the Confederate flag.

By John Fogarty

We know what we’ll get from Mayo in Limerick today. But we don’t have a clue what to expect from Cork, writes Colm Cooper.

Too many games is never a bad complaint but this past weekend’s inter-county GAA action and affairs takes a lot of digesting.

I walked out of Fitzgerald Stadium after watching Kerry trounce Cork not knowing what to think.

At the moment Munster finals aren’t even full stops on Kerry’s road. Éamonn Fitzmaurice has yet to postmortem a loss in the province as manager, but for the best part of yesterday’s 11-point defeat of Cork.

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Either the Cork camp is reading from the same script or they genuinely believe that victory over a top-six outfit will lift the dark clouds and reinstate them as a leading football force.

Éamonn Fitzmaurice can empathise with his Cork counterpart, Peadar Healy. Not many people know just how lonely a road inter-county management can be.

Peadar Healy has called for a revamp of the Cork senior football championship, expressing frustration that 15 of his players had to line out with their clubs two weeks before the Munster final.

CORK’s inter-county contingent appear to have emerged unscathed from a weekend of Cork SFC action, which saw a return from injury for midfielder Aidan Walsh.

Historically, Cork supporters usually reserve hints of departing the scene of a football crime at half-time for days of trimmings at the hands of Kerry.

Peadar Healy’s failed request to have club championship games called off this weekend has not soured relations between the Cork football management and the county board, according to Ger Lane.

Having been battered and bashed in recent weeks, Kerry’s Stephen O’Brien is expecting a backlash from the Cork footballers when the counties meet on the first Sunday of next month.

The current reality of Cork football is that they take the wins as and when they come. 

The idea that for Cork the only way is up is completely wrong. There’s new depths there to plummet, writes Colm Cooper.

Today’s Munster semi-final marks the 25th game of Peadar Healy’s spell as Cork manager. Here is a chequered reign in numbers, as tallied by Eoghan Cormican