Middle third will be a 'war zone' says Seán Óg

Seán Óg Ó hAilpín, the last man to captain Cork to an All-Ireland SHC title in 2005, says that how the Rebels cope with Clare's 'extra man' tactic will go a long way to deciding the winners of Sunday's hotly anticipated final.

Davy Fitzgerald's ploy of using Patrick Donnellan in a sweeper-type role at the back has come up trumps for Clare, especially in their quarter-final and semi-final victories over Galway and Limerick respectively.

The Clare captain, positioned in front of the full-back line with Conor Ryan reverting to centre back, has been in pivotal form of late and Ó hAilpín knows Cork can ill-afford to let Donnellan and company dictate in what promises to be a fascinating tactical battle.

"If the game is orthodox, 15-on-15, that's what Cork want. I think they showed that in the semi-final against Dublin, Dublin went orthodox 15-on-15 and Cork kind of made hay there and it's only when Dublin deployed a sweeper that Cork kind of found the going hard for a while," he said in an exclusive interview with the GAA's official website.

"What nullified that was the sending off of Ryan O'Dwyer. But if we can get a 15-on-15 match-up, I think that's where the winning is for Cork. Unfortunately we're not going to get that because Clare are not going to line up 15-on-15.

"We saw the way Clare have been doing it all year. They play seven guys in the back-line and Pat Donnellan is their spare guy. I don't see Clare changing much for the All-Ireland final so it's how Cork counteract that."

Ó hAilpín reckons Cork will go for a 'mirror image' of Clare's alignment, using an extra player in defence against the Banner's likely five-man forward line. Cork's players in the middle third will also have to maintain a huge work-rate if they are to keep the ball away from Clare's danger men.

"The winning of the game is which team utilises their extra man better. I think the key to that is the middle of the pitch because basically what happens is you can nullify the extra man in the back-line if you have time and space to pinpoint passes," explained the three-time All-Star.

"Usually the trouble comes when if you can't pinpoint passes and you're under pressure to get a shot out and you can't look at where you're hitting, nine times out of 10 the ball goes to the extra man.

"So the key is what happens in the middle third...who applies more pressure on who, and so determining the quality ball. The middle third is going to be a war zone with lots of work required. It's the team that can get the quality ball in and beat the spare man, that's where I feel the winning will be."

Ó hAilpín had some choice words about Cork manager Jimmy Barry-Murphy's selection policy earlier in the summer, questioning why his long-time defensive colleague John Gardiner had been disposed with. "There's guys there being called in from places I never heard of," he quipped, before Cork beat Clare in June's Munster semi-final.

The rise of this new 'rebel-ution' under JBM in just his second season back has caught many by surprise, particularly given Cork's relegation from the league's top flight in April and the absence of players of the calibre of Darren Sweetnam who is concentrating on rugby, Damien Cahalane and Eoin Cadogan who both focused on Gaelic football this year, broken fibula-and-tibia victim Paudie O'Sullivan and Brian Murphy who was their most recent injury concern with a serious shoulder injury.

Ó hAilpín, an Ulster Bank Ambassador, admitted: "Cork got to the semi-final last year and I would have felt that a semi-final again this year was maybe the most realistic aim. Did I see them getting to the final? Probably not.

"I would have thought probably another year or two, with more experience behind them. But they're there now. And well deserved, the way the year has gone for them.

"With Clare, they've had underage success but it usually takes a while for the underage success to turn into senior level success. But they've done it instantaneously. Their development has been very rapid."

"You can say that like Cork, I don't think there were expectations for them to reach the final this year. Maybe in another year or two, but they've done it this year. And like Cork, they've done it deservedly, looking at their path this year to the final. They've been equally as impressive as Cork. That's why it's such an intriguing final."

Although he may not have agreed with some of his selection decisions this season, Seán Óg knows exactly how inspirational a figure Barry-Murphy can be for Cork's class of 2013 - he himself was part of a Cork team with an average age of 22 that lifted the Liam MacCarthy Cup under JBM back in 1999.

Describing the St. Finbarr's clubman as 'an absolute, total icon' on Leeside, he continued: "To have a person like Jimmy in the dressing room, even just talking to you, addressing you, that gets your adrenalin pumping alone.

"He's a man who you just want to do so well for, because of what he has done for Cork and the legendary status that he has."

Asked about possible parallels between Cork's 1999 squad and the current crop, Ó hAilpín is just hopeful that this new young squad can grasp the chance to write their own piece of hurling history this weekend and follow in the footsteps of the much-decorated Diarmuid O'Sullivan and Brian Corcoran.

"From the 1999 squad to this year's squad, it's two different teams, personalities, people. They are always going to be linked because Jimmy has kind of fashioned this team to get to an All-Ireland final the same way he did back in 1999 and there's always going to be a link.

"But I hurled with the likes of Donal Óg (Cusack), Diarmuid O'Sullivan, Joe Deane, Brian Corcoran. As much as you would like to feel that there's a replacement there for those guys, there's only one type of those fellas.

"But what these current guys can do is make legacies for themselves and that's what they're embarking on. For me, I'd find it hard to find another Brian Corcoran anywhere.

"I'm looking at the current squad, do I see anyone like Brian? I don't, and that for me is the difference. You can never replace the players and hurlers that were there before, but at the same time, new legacies are always there to be made."