Anthony Daly: There would be no downside for Cork in winning the league

We’re back to this perennial argument again at the start of every season; apart from Kilkenny, does any team have any real interest in winning the league?

Cork manager Kieran Kingston speaks to his team during a water break in a National League game with Waterford last year. Picture: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

When Ger Loughnane and the league are ever mentioned in the same sentence, everyone turns it into a maths sum and comes up with the exact same answer: Loughnane and league hurling = apathy = sabotage = zero interest in winning the competition.

Everyone tends to forget that Clare got to a league final and two more semi-finals during Ger’s six-year term, but our poor return at the business end of those campaigns added to the myth of Loughnane’s supposed philosophy of making sure that we never won the competition.