Pat Hartnett: Cork players now doing themselves justice
The Cork selector, just so we’re clear, does not say that they didn’t do themselves justice in recent campaigns, but to borrow a favourite line of Hartnett’s, ‘we’re as good as our record says we are’. Their record, up until the 2-27 to 1-26 win over Tipperary on May 21, that their first in the Munster championship since 2014, was in no way flattering.
How many players who shone that afternoon in Thurles delivered a performance of even close to mediocre against the same opposition 12 months previous? Bill Cooper — remember his hit on Kevin Moran in the Munster semi-final — was one of four of the more senior players to be called ashore during last July’s qualifier exit at the hands of Wexford. Seamus Harnedy, along with Christopher Joyce and Stephen McDonnell, was part of that withdrawn quartet. Such has been his scintillating form of late, it’s rather unthinkable, injury aside, that a situation would arise where Harnedy is shown the curly finger.
