Forward-looking Alan Cadogan has little appetite to deal with ‘what ifs’ of last year’s semi-final

Oscar Wilde wrote that no man is rich enough to buy back his past and, when it comes to reflecting on last year’s All-Ireland semi-final, Alan Cadogan has no plans to.

That’s nothing to do with the modest salary of a schoolteacher, but more the psychological need to park the Cork hurlers’ late-game collapse before they ride into the 2018 championship in Sunday’s clash with Clare at Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

Having led by two points inside the final quarter in Croke Park last August, the wheels fell off soon after Damien Cahalane’s red card, Waterford knifing them for 2-2 in just four minutes, before running out 11-point winners. What might have been for Cork?