Ring: ‘Trust, respect and confidence’ key for Cork

It will hardly register as a galloping shock to suggest the performances of Mark Coleman, Darragh Fitzgibbon and Shane Kingston will have a significant bearing on the outcome of this evening’s Munster U21 hurling final.

Fitzgibbon had been unwell for the two days leading into Sunday’s Munster SHC final and this showed in the opening period, the 21-year old not his usual all-action self.

For the second-half, the Charleville clubman took up station at centre-forward and finished the afternoon as one of two Cork players nominated for the man-of-the-match award.

His collection of key plays included a point at the beginning of the second-half, his superb score with 20 minutes remaining and, as Donal O’Grady wrote in these pages on Monday, “a piece of Fitzgibbon wizardry”, which finished with Seamus Harnedy delivering the game-winning goal.

No more than Coleman and Kingston, a fully rested Fitzgibbon would be invaluable to Cork’s bid this evening to win a first Munster U21 crown in 11 years.

It’s an altogether different matter to ask these players to take up leading roles just three days after such a taxing outing against Clare — Coleman and Fitzgibbon played the full 70, Kingston was on stage for 58 minutes — but that’s precisely what will be expected of them.

“Even as a spectator, you come away physically and mentally tired from watching a match like that, so you can only imagine what toll it must have taken from actually being involved and living it,” said Cork U21 manager Denis Ring.

“To come away from a match like that and then have only a couple of days to refocus and reset your mind, that is a really big challenge and a really big ask.

“I was talking to them after the game and I know their focus is now on Wednesday. You can be sure these lads won’t leave any stone unturned in terms of trying to ensure that they can perform to the best of their ability on Wednesday.

"We would have discussed everything beforehand in terms of recovery, where would they go after the senior match and how they would deal with all that.”

Coleman, Fitzgibbon and Kingston were three of seven U21 players who togged out at Thurles.

Robbie O’Flynn saw the final 12 minutes of action, while David Griffin, Tim O’Mahony and Jack O’Connor were on the bench. That’s half of Denis Ring’s starting team.

Consider now that the seniors played five times between May 20 and July 1 and so it doesn’t need telling the number of times these seven players would have trained with the U21s or lined out in preparatory challenge games.

What has been a significant help in countering this is that Ring had these players at minor. He knows them.

That they couldn’t always be present for training or challenge games was in no way detrimental to Cork’s championship build-up.

“It is crucial, because you know them, you know their strengths and what they are capable of, because we have established a rapport with these fellas, going back to their minor days, there is trust, respect and confidence on both sides.

"That would be very hard to generate or create if you were to have them for the first time this year as an entirely new management group and not obviously have the luxury of being able to see them week in, week out. For us, that has been very reassuring.”

That’s all well and good, but there is still a job at hand.

This Tipperary team contains 11 starters from the 2016 All-Ireland minor winning side, a side which overturned a six-point second-half deficit against Cork, in the latter’s backyard, to win through to that year’s Munster final.

“If we can turn up and be physically and mentally ready for the battle,” concluded Ring, “we are going to be very hard to beat.”