Kingdom look too powerful for untried Cork

THERE is, for good reason, a great deal of uncertainty about how Cork footballers will fare in tomorrow’s Bank of Ireland Munster Football Championship final in Fitzgerald Stadium (4pm).

And, while genuine doubts about been expressed about Kerry’s form coming into the game, there is quite a sizeable gap between the sides in terms of their potential.

Cork have a big gap to make up and it’s questionable if it is within their capability to succeed.

Predictably, the composition of the Cork team has provoked a lot of comment and, I would suggest, caused some surprise among the playing personnel. Billy Morgan and his co-selectors have made five changes from the Limerick game and the end result is a combination which features only seven of the players who lined out in the 2005 final.

What it amounts to is a mix of youth and experience predominantly, but with a few surprise inclusions, such as that of Pierce O’Neill from Aghada at centre forward and Donncha O’Connor (Ballydesmond) in the left corner. It’s fair to say that outside of county club football neither player would be well known, even though O’Neill did play with TG4’s “Underdogs” in 2004.

Kerry’s team is notable in that Liam Hassett and Dara Ó Cinnéide have departed the scene and that the declining influence of Mike Frank Russell means he is mainly used as an impact substitute. On the credit side, Bryan Sheehan has settled into the attack very well and Mossy Lyons’s perseverance and consistency sees him selected for his first final since 2001. Other than that, the choice of Kenmare’s Paul O’Connor (last year’s minor full forward) in place of Darren O’Sullivan, is the only surprise.

Kerry were pushed hard by Waterford and didn’t it have it all their own way against Tipperary, while Cork struggled against Limerick. But, by and large, we can ignore what has happened so far, including Kerry not scoring a goal in the championship.

Cork/Kerry Munster finals are a very different proposition and anything is possible.

However, the reality is that Kerry are going in with an established team, which may very well end up winning the All-Ireland. The truth is that they will win fairly comfortably — especially if Colm Cooper is on song — unless they suffer a serious loss of form.

For this Cork team, essentially untried, it would need a powerful display and a lot of help from the holders to cause an upset. Somehow, I don’t envisage that happening.