If Cork sit tight and deep against Kerry, it will be a mistake

Cork are 7/2 with the bookies but I wouldn’t back them. I was never involved with Kerry in a Munster final in Páirc Ui Chaoimh where Cork were that friendless in the market. The message is clear: Being competitive and getting within two or three points of Kerry represents progress.

Those awkward steps, the 10-yard transition from Páirc Ui Chaoimh’s old dressing room across the no-man’s land of a teeming tunnel to the relative sanctuary of the pitch was one of those thrillingly visceral experience you remember easiest when playing days are over.

You were never accosted physically, but stony-faced reminders that this was Cork, that you better mind your step, were never far beneath the surface. Con Houlihan once wrote how you should never comment on a crocodile’s crooked teeth until you’ve crossed the river. He might have been looking down the tunnel at a Munster final in Cork when he penned it.