Conor Lehane believes Cork getting closer to overdue All-Ireland

By Paul Keane

Conor Lehane has admitted that the Cork hurlers turned a definite corner after 2016, the worst year of his career.

The attacker and 2013 All-Ireland finalist said that a general shift in attitude and application has been evident since then, elevating them to back-to-back Munster titles.

In the previous season, 2016, Cork played three championship games and lost two of them, bowing out to Wexford in the qualifiers in early July.

Lehane partly agreed that Cork weren’t ruthless enough back then and that they often approached games with a ‘we’ll see how it goes’ attitude.

“Definitely, the attitude has completely changed, it’s changed massively,” said Lehane, who will compete in the AIB Munster Club Championship with Midleton.

“It’s only since it’s happened that you realise how much it’s changed from before. Not that it was really bad but there was something wrong that we got beaten really bad two years in a row, especially 2016 was the worst year I was involved.

“That was a really tough one to take. We thought we’d done everything right leading into that year.

“It didn’t work, so there had to be a reason.

Even the attitude of players towards training, and each other, and approaching games was probably another thing. I think once we all sat down and talked about it really, (we realised) there has to be something up.

“It’s not that we don’t have the players, it’s not that we don’t have the training facilities or anything like that. But it has to be something. Not that we have figured it out or solved it.”

Yet, there has been a clear improvement in the past two seasons with Cork now approaching 2019 as genuine All-Ireland contenders after back-to-back semi-final defeats.

“I never said it was just one big thing, it can never be one massive change, that’s not realistic, just a rake of small changes that will build up to something big,” continued attacker Lehane.

“I just felt we were more, ‘we’ll go out and see, if it goes well, brilliant. If it doesn’t, that’s sport’. That’s a poor enough attitude.

“If you are just going to wait and see what happens when it comes down to the gritty times, you will never come out on top because you can never ever beat a team that has hunger.

“You will keep going to the end then but if you are going out and just being like, ‘Ah yeah, we’ll see how it goes’... then if it comes down to the wire the other team with the hunger and the drive will always come out on top, no matter how talented one team is over another.”

Lehane said that Cork remain a work in progress having coughed up leads in each of the last two All-Ireland semi-finals, losing to Waterford and Limerick respectively.

We are still working on it because we obviously came up short twice at a very big stage in the championship,” he said. “So there’s a lot to do still but as long as we have an idea of what we want to do, it’s a help.

Lehane is preparing for his ninth season with Cork and admits he thought he’d probably have won an All-Ireland medal by now.

“At this stage, maybe,” he nodded. “Well, going into a year, I would never be like, ‘Right, we are going to win it’. I would never think that. But that is your ultimate goal obviously, in the back of your head.

“Before I joined the panel I definitely would have liked to think I’d have one (by now) at least but as the years go it does get a bit more frustrating. But you can either use it for good or bad, that kind of a way.”

Asked if he still thinks he’ll win that elusive All-Ireland, the 26-year-old nodded enthusiastically. “Ah you have to, definitely, yeah.”

His immediate challenge is an AIB Munster Club quarter-final clash with hosts Ballygunner on Sunday.

“We’ve played a certain way all year and we’ll try and go back to that and everyone has bought into that so it’s encouraging,” said Lehane.