Kieran Kingston – ‘We’re only just started working on the Cork wall’

Kieran Kingston says that he’s begun building the walls on the Cork hurling house that he wants to create, writes Jackie Cahill.

But the county’s senior hurling team manager has warned that it will be some time before he’s calling in the roofers and furniture dealers.

In terms of progress, Cork have come some way in 12 months, winning three of their five Division 1A matches this season, having lost all five in 2016.

But Kingston insists that it would be “naïve” to read too much into last Sunday’s victory over Munster championship opponents Tipperary at Páirc Uí Rinn – and that would-be contenders are still playing catch-up with the provincial and All-Ireland champions.

Kingston said: “We’re happy with where we are, and happy with the progress that we’ve made in terms of avoiding relegation, giving game-time to players and getting to a League quarter-final.

“But we’re not in any way naïve enough to think that last Sunday was any reflection of Tipp and what’s going to happen in May.

“We know the rest are playing catch-up with Tipperary, we’re well aware of that and we’re a developing team and we need to be patient.

“There’s a small bit of hype because it happened against Tipperary but they were missing half their team and we scraped a win.

“It’s hype we could do without and not an accurate reflection of Tipperary and where we are.

“We need to keep things in context. We have to be patient in our development and there’s a long road ahead, a long way to go.

“We’ve put the foundations in place and are starting to build the walls. Tipp have the house fully-furnished. We haven’t even got to the roof, never mind the furniture.”

Kingston has good reason to be pleased with Cork’s League campaign to date, considering that their final three group games were against Kilkenny, Waterford and Tipperary, the latter two games resulting in victories after a good position was squandered in the Kilkenny game.

And Kingston said: “If you were to say at the start of the year that we’d win the Munster senior League and come second in the group stages of the National League, we’d have taken that, when we were considered one of the favourites for relegation.

“And that was justified on where we had come from, you can’t argue with that.”

Kingston says that reaching the League quarter-finals is a “bonus” and Cork are now presented with familiar opposition in the form of Limerick, who they beat twice in the Munster senior league, including after extra-time in the final of the competition.

But Kingston believes that GAA chiefs have missed a trick by opting against expanding the top two divisions of the Allianz League to eight teams each.

Cork were faced with a delicate balancing act – experimentation while at the same time trying to collect enough points to avoid a relegation play-off.

Kingston said: “We had five guys involved in Freshers hurling and we had another nine in the Fitzgibbon Cup at various stages.

“Those guys are going six or seven days a week, in the worst time of the year for hurling.

“We were lucky in that we were able to give a lot of Freshers and younger lads game time during the League, while at the same time getting enough points on the board to stay out of a relegation battle. We weren’t able to do that last year.

“If you had seven League games, you can give more guys an opportunity to stake a claim. Secondly, you can mix and match your Fitzgibbon and college players, who are pulled and dragged a lot during the months of January, February and March.

We had one guy who played six matches in 19 days, at 20 years of age, and that’s no game with his club. He might not play six between May and September.

“The third thing is that, and we had fantastic crowds at our three home games, the more matches you can give them, the better it is for the promotion of hurling.”

Looking ahead to the Limerick test, Kingston confirmed that key forwards Conor Lehane and Shane Kingston will be ruled out through injury, while Conor O’Sullivan, Paul Haughney and Robbie O’Flynn are still unavailable.

Daniel Kearney is rated as “50-50” by the manager, who concluded: “We’re in bonus territory. It’s the most important game we have this year because it’s the next game. We’ve played Limerick twice already and I watched their game against Galway last Sunday, when they played really good hurling for the vast majority of it and were unlucky not to get something. It’s a huge test and will be a very tough game for us.”