Conor Lehane: Limerick route won’t deter Cork’s Munster ambition

By Paul Keane

Conor Lehane insists Cork will target another Munster title success in 2019 and won’t be swayed by Limerick’s alternative path to All-Ireland glory.

The experienced forward dismissed the idea that pushing for Munster wins in the last two seasons may have cost Cork in subsequent All-Ireland semi-finals.

Also, he rubbished the suggestion that finishing third in Munster, like All-Ireland winners Limerick did this year, might be the best way to go in 2019.

“There was enough of a gap between the Munster final and the All-Ireland semi-final,” said Lehane. “It’s very easy to pick out things like that after a loss. If you won, then it would be, ‘ah, sure they had more competitive games in Munster, that stood to them’; and we only lost in extra-time [this year]. We were very close in fairness. I wouldn’t put it down to that being a negative. It was an absolute privilege to win the Munster title,” said the 2013 All-Ireland finalist.

Some commentators suggested that Limerick’s third-place finish in Munster allowed them a low-stress run to the All-Ireland quarter-finals.

They hammered five goals past Carlow in a preliminary quarter-final, then took out Kilkenny and rode a wave of momentum to a first All- Ireland win since 1973.

However, Lehane dismissed links between Cork’s punishing five-game Munster campaign last summer and the late collapse against Limerick, when players complained of running out of gas.

“It was a natural body response from lads really at the end of a tough game,” said Lehane. “I think lads had just given it everything. Even at that, it could have easily gone the other way and we could have won. With the amount of saves pulled off in that game, balls going short and just wide, it could have easily gone in our favour. So I think it was down to the game itself and how it developed than players being tired or not fit enough.”

It’ll be 30 years in 2019 since a county completed a Munster three in a row and Lehane said Cork will be targeting a successful title defence.

“You deal with a situation as it lands in front of you and inevitably that means trying to win your next game,” said the Midleton man. “You’re always trying to be as competitive as you can and when we get back to the championship next year, nobody will be going out saying, ‘I think we’ll leave off trying to win Munster’. I know the All-Ireland is always the end goal, but you try to take the most that you can out of every game and every section of the championship.”

Lehane insists it’ll be the same approach for the national league, even if other teams consider conserving their energy for the intense championship.

“It’s a very hard one to imagine that players might say, ‘we’ll go at three-quarter pace’ or ‘we’ll take it easy’,” he said. “You’re never in a position to take it easy. It’s not as if, as players, you can even presume that you’re going to get your place in the team. With the U21s coming through this year and the likelihood that fellas will be coming into the panel, the competition for places is going to be a big battle in itself.”