Summer road lengthens for Cork’s football tyros

Bobbie O’Dwyer’s recollection is forensic, and not because his son was Cork corner-back in Tralee that night.

For those invested in Cork football, the narrow, season-ending minor football championship defeats to all-conquering Kerry in the past five years have burrowed their way into every crevice. In 2015 and again last year, Cork were a point short of Kerry in do-or-die jousts that the inequitable, and now dustbinned, provincial system served up. On both occasions, a first defeat ended their season, and most of their minor careers. By reaching tomorrow night’s provincial decider for the first time in three years, at least the Cork class of 2019 get the chance to find their feet over the course of the summer.