Cork keeping everyone guessing - for the time being

EVEN a man with Éamonn Fitzmaurice’s forensic attention to detail will struggle to get an advance sense of which Cork side he’s facing today.

Is it the one which mauled Mayo, or ran Dublin ragged for 35 minutes? Or the one downed too easily by Donegal and ruthlessly rodded by Roscommon? Anyone left behind from the Clones trip last Sunday to run the rule over Cork’s performance at home to cellar-dwellers Down was wasting their time. It was dire stuff.

Peadar Healy has drawn up a broad, blank canvass, the breadth of which is threatening to become more a problem than a solution. 34 players have been tried in the six games, including four goalkeepers. There’s been a raft of new defenders tried - Kieran Histon, Daniel Hazel, Kevin Crowley - but none that have locked down a jersey as yet. After today’s 70 minutes, the Cork management has some serious thinking, and culling, to do.