The quiet sound of self-belief

ONE THIRD of Cork’s starting 15 took the bother to present themselves for press questioning on Tuesday, an unseasonally healthy number. All starters too, but it wasn’t so much the utterances as their demeanour that left a lingering sense of what can be achieved at the end of the Championship campaign.

Words didn’t patronise. Instead there was a quiet air of poise and a palpable sense of something you won’t find in the transcriptions afterwards – that this is a team growing together, in their belief and their goals.

Where Billy Morgan once spoke of the scary absence of self belief in the Cork dressing room, now there’s understated self-worth. When one player is queried about leaders in the team, he points to Tyrone. “You wouldn’t pick many leaders out of that team, because they’re all leaders. If you’re looking around the field for leaders, you’re in trouble.”