English feels Déise pose significant threat to Rebels

Cork are Nicky English’s value-for-money punt for the All-Ireland title this summer but he’s not discounting Waterford as both teams enter Sunday’s Munster SHC quarter-final with little fanfare.

The newly-appointed Sky Sports co-commentator questioned whether last year’s Championship runners-up, although they won promotion to Division 1A, actually cared all that much for this year’s National League.

“They were poor enough in the league against Tipperary in the end. I wonder how interested they were in the league. They could be a dangerous team this year.

“My original thought was they would be one of my main fancies for the All-Ireland if they build on last year which I think they have.

“You haven’t seen that much of them. You saw them in the quarter-final against Tipperary and they were down early, made a bit of a recovery but they didn’t set the world on fire. But they showed certain dangers. (Seamus) Harnedy and (Conor) Lehane showed form, so I’d say Cork are under the radar and that’s probably the way Jimmy Barry-Murphy would like it. To me they’d be a prime fancy for the All-Ireland.”

English still feels Waterford are missing a goal-poacher up front but is not reading much into it holding them back in Thurles.

“I actually saw Waterford in the league a couple of times and they were impressive enough to a point. I think ultimately last year in the Championship they failed against Kilkenny because they had a lack of real punch up front and in the league game I saw against Kilkenny they had similar difficulties. Saying that, I don’t think there’s that much between any of the teams in the Championship. Derek McGrath is a smart guy. That’s the way you’d want to come in — under the radar. Cork are favourites. Waterford have genuine injury problems. That’s not what they’d want. They’d want everyone to compete. I think they’ll compete now by the way. They have a lot of good players, the likes of Kevin Moran and Brick Walsh, they are very strong around the half-back line and midfield, but the difficulty for Waterford is that since they have lost John Mullane last year they struggle for scores.”