O’Neill savouring every game

With a handsome 10-point haul, Colm O’Neill crowned his first full game for Cork since his third cruciate operation last year.

After some impressive appearances off the bench in the league, it might have been expected the Ballyclough man would have seen 70 minutes sooner than Saturday, but he pointed to the race for places in training.

“I obviously played a few (full) club games since 2012 but it’s been a long time coming and a lot of hard days.”

He continued: “Fellas were in the first team on their performance in training. You can ask Brian (Cuthbert), there was fierce competition in training. Brian picks lads on form and that’s what he’s going to do next week.”

O’Neill ranks Sunday’s opponents Mayo as among the best two outfits in the race for Sam. “The last few encounters, they’ve come out on top, most noticeably this year in the league. We need no reminding of what Mayo have and they’re not one of the top two teams in the country for no reason. ”

The 25-year-old said Cork were happy to move on from the disappointment of the Munster final but glad to find themselves where they would have been had they beaten Kerry. “We have the help of another game under our belt going forward to play Mayo.”