No substitute for true dedication

IT has become almost axiomatic that the Cork senior football panel is by far the strongest in the country. We didn’t need them to win the league and championship double last year to inform us of that but there were signs right throughout last season that their cliché strength-in depth was being used to telling and tactical effect to swing matches their way in the last 10 or 15 minutes.

Playing five different midfielders during the course of last year’s All-Ireland final has to be some sort of a record but their telling use of substitutes all year proved masterful.

However, for many weeks in June, July and August, Conor Counihan was being accused of not knowing his best 15 players and not having the sense of how best to align them. It was a measure of the unity of purpose in Cork last year that during those periods of doubt and introspection for supporters, nobody on the panel of over 30 players broke ranks.