Old stagers keen to finally get grip on Sam

IT was only an off-the-cuff joke, but half the country would understand where Pearse O’Neill was coming from. “Darragh (Ó Sé) must have four or five All-Ireland medals at this stage,” said the Cork centre-forward, tongue firmly in cheek, at the Cork press night last week. “All I want is one.”

Cork are not the kind of county that can illicit any great sympathy from the neutral — it has been far too successful for that — but their footballers’ travails have come close.

For most of this decade they have been hanging around the Sam Maguire without ever getting acquainted, much like a teenage boy left watching his crush dance the slow sets.