Cork Premier SHC final: Three key questions

STICK OR TWIST? Does Ger Cunningham keep faith with his full-back line or does he redeploy one or both of Damien Cahalane and Billy Hennessy from the half-back line? Pic: Eddie O'Hare

Does Ger Cunningham stick or twist in the full-back line?

We won’t make any friends among the St Finbarr’s defence for putting forward our belief that the Barrs’ full-back line is their weakest. We table this point of view because of the fact that Blackrock’s strongest line - by a considerable distance – is their full-forward line.

The Rockies tend to operate with just two inside a lot of the time. But it makes no difference what two from Alan Connolly, Robbie Cotter, and Tadhg Deasy are stationed close to goal for the three are equally capable of extending the Barrs famine into a 30th year.

Does Ger Cunningham keep faith with his full-back line or does he redeploy one or both of Damien Cahalane and Billy Hennessy from the half-back line?

Which dessert do you fancy: Experience or youthful exuberance?

We’re blue in the face at this stage spelling out the youthfulness of Ger Cunningham’s side. For anyone who missed previous editions, here we go one last time: One-third of the Barrs starting team - Ben O’Connor, Ethan Twomey, William Buckley, Ben Cunningham, and Jack Cahalane - are U20. A sixth starter, Brian Hayes, is U21.

The sextet do have plenty of big-game experience from their All-Ireland minor and U20 triumphs with Cork last year. Those games, though, were played against fellow teenagers. The Rockies men they’ll encounter tomorrow have close to a decade on anything they met while wearing red last summer.

Tomorrow is a third county final for a further down-the-road Blackrock team. Of the 20 players who saw game-time in the recent semi-final win over Erin’s Own, 13 featured in the 2017 county final defeat. Some of the Barrs sextet were playing U14 at the time.

Will history weigh heavy on blue shoulders?

This question is exclusive to the Barrs. What impact will the club’s 29-year famine have on the players on Sunday? Do they allow themselves to be motivated and driven by the club’s longest ever drought? Do they try and ignore it? Can they ignore it? Could it prove burdensome? How do they avoid a situation where it is pulling them down rather than lifting them up?