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.

Semple Stadium holds various other pleasant memories for him.

It has been "a happy hunting ground", he says.

As a senior hurler he had never won a championship game in Páirc Uí Chaoimh before this year's Munster final, although he was full-back on the football team that beat Kerry there in the 1999 Munster final.

However, with the exception of Brian Corcoran, nobody else on the current team has managed it either.

Corcoran was left corner-back on the team which beat Tipperary in the 1992 semi-final.

And since then, Cork have had only two home games (1996 and 2001), both of which they lost to Limerick.

If you were to question Seán Óg about life as a hurler these days, he could raise a variety of topics, such as how he informed RTÉ on camera that no Cork hurler would cooperate with the station over the ongoing ban on players drinking from Club Energise bottles during interviews.

But if you dig deeper and ask him about his accident in 2001, he will talk about the thing that really matters to him: being fit and healthy, and the enjoyment he gains from being able to continue participating at the highest level.

Looking back, he felt he was developing well as a hurler after winning his first All-Ireland senior hurling medal in 1999, and had gained in confidence. But the week before Cork met Limerick in the championship at Páirc Uí Chaoimh, he was involved in a car accident.

Watching the game from his hospital bed, he wondered about his future, knowing he had incurred a serious leg injury.

"For about the first two years after, I often had to grit my teeth. Things were not going according to plan with my comeback,' he explains.

"But I was willing to hang in there and be patient. And then, things fell into place last year. A lot of players have their ups and downs. It was a low in my career, but it was great to be able to bounce back, be in good health and enjoy the game you like playing."

Being the sportsman he is,

Ó hAilpín has no problem in putting his hand up and admitting when he doesn't maintain his own high standards. For example, in the Munster semi-final against Waterford his form wasn't the best.

"To be honest, in general we weren't happy with the performance. And personally I have to take a lot of the blame for Eoin Kelly scoring six points that day.

"My main job is to keep my man scoreless and I was on Eoin Kelly for a lot of the first half when he got a lot of the points. Basically I wasn't tight enough. He was drifting out towards midfield, and being the champion player he is, he picked up good ball and made full use of it. Hopefully I will learn from the lesson. But on the day he was sensational."

Ó hAilpín knows Cork supporters will be measuring them against the All-Ireland final display. Yet around this time last year they were far from convincing after having "stumbled" over Limerick, except that after losing the Munster final, they were "unstoppable".

They realised how much was at stake when they went to Killarney to play Tipperary.

Defeat would have ended their season. They wouldn't get a second chance, and they responded appropriately.

As a key part of that response, given his storming second-half solo, Seán Óg has even more incentive to do well, given he's only the third Na Piarsaigh county captain, and aware of the fate that befell Tony O'Sullivan and (Carlow-born) Mark Mullins.

The omens were not on his side, he says, at least in Munster.

"Tony was captain in '91 and as a young fellow I remember the draw in Páirc Uí Chaoimh and going up to Thurles for the replay. Cork looked like having the game sewn up when they were 11 points up and cruising. Then Tipperary made switches, Pat Fox got a goal, Declan Carr got a flick on and Aidan Ryan came on and got another goal. That was Tony's chance gone.

"Mark Mullins came in as captain in 1996 and we were badly beaten by Limerick that day down in the Park."

Despite the win this year, the semi-final against Waterford isn't a pleasant memory.

"We weren't happy with the Waterford performance. We got over the line, but struggled. If Paul Flynn and Ken McGrath were fit it would have been a different ball game ...

"Myself and a few of the other players on the Cork team are at the stage where we're not getting any younger. You almost view every game as your last. So we're going to try to make the most of it."