Cork out to prove a point
The reigning All-Ireland champions have failed to make the nextcampaign’s All-Ireland series — quarter-finals or better — just once since the advent of the All-Ireland qualifiers in 2001, with that peculiar honour falling to a Tyrone side that fell to Laois in O’Moore Park in 2006.
Mickey Harte’s side had limped through that entire season having been worn down by injuries to key players and the curtain finally came down in Portlaoise in early July on a day borrowed from the depths of winter.
“It was an absolutely horrible day,” said Laois defender Aidan Fennelly yesterday. “I remember we played the second-half, I think it was, against the wind. It was a really low-scoring game, a filthy day, but it ended well for us.”
The final scoreline read: Laois 0-9, Tyrone 0-6.
Mick O’Dwyer’s Laois were still serious operators at the time but the result was, nevertheless, a shock. The All-Ireland final was still almost three months away and yet Tyrone had exited the championship on the same day as Clare, Leitrim and Tipperary.
Their status as champions aside, there are few similarities to be gleaned between Tyrone then and Cork now. Injuries to forwards of the calibre of Ciaran Sheehan and Colm O’Neill bear a slight resemblance, but Fennelly doesn’t remember much talk about Tyrone’s weakened state.
“I wasn’t thinking that anywaybecause I was marking Owen Mulligan that day so I knew I had a tough job ahead of me. I don’t remember them being without a few but that Tyrone team had serious players everywhere.
“They were one of the few teams around that you could actually name everyone on their subs’ bench as well as the team and I suppose they are a bit like Cork now in that way. Whoever they put out is a serious player.”
Laois approached that game with something to prove after a traumatic 14-point loss to Dublin in a Leinster semi-final and Down’s motivations will differ only slightly in that they have yet to convince this year and will be eager to prove last year’s run was no fluke.
Like Laois, they will also be motivated by the sight of the reigning All-Ireland champions this weekend, not least because it was Cork who ensured their summer’s odyssey would finish in bitter disappointment in 2010.
“A draw against any top team will make you focus and especially when they’re the All-Ireland champions,” said Fennelly. “We had been hammered by Dublin in the Leinster semi-final before that and we knew that it was make-or-break for us. ”
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