Dónal Óg Cusack was shouting: ‘We are Cork, boy, we are Cork’

Cork teams always had the ability to turn the bookies into fools. They had an arrogance and strut about them. But that swagger is gone for a bit, writes Anthony Daly.

Before the 1999 Munster final, we were hot favourites to beat Cork. After destroying Tipperary in a semi-final replay, we looked to have taken our game to a new level. We thought we had. We felt stronger than anyone else. We believed we could spook any other team in Munster. What we never thought about though, was that Cork didn’t buy all of that stuff.

I had been on Clare teams which had beaten Cork in the championship in 1993, 1995, 1997 and 1998. Jeez that was stuff we could only dream of growing up in Clare. We had no fear of them. I didn’t even worry about the Rebels until we were walking around in the parade beforehand.