Seán Óg’s field of dreams

NEXT Sunday Seán Óg Ó hAilpín returns to a familiar field.

If the last 10 years have been successful for the Na Piarsaigh man, many of his happiest moments and lowest have occurred in Croke Park, where he and his Cork teammates take on Waterford in the All-Ireland SHC quarter-final on Sunday.

What makes the captain so remarkable, of course, is his rapid development at underage level only a few years after his father John moved the family from Australia to Cork. With that in mind it's surprising to think of his experiences in the country's premier stadia for example, he'd prefer to play a Munster hurling final in Thurles because that was where he won his first inter-county medal, with the minor hurling team coached by Jimmy Barry-Murphy back in 1994.