Shane Barrett: We'll remember Saturday for the rest of our careers

ON TO THURLES; Shane Barrett of Cork in action against Seán Finn of Limerick. Photo by Daire Brennan/Sportsfile

Backs to the wall. No room left for mistakes or manoeuvre. It’s a position that suits Cork just fine.

They find clarity amid the uncomfortable. They find an escape route when cornered by pressure and the four-in-a-row All-Ireland champions.

Cork remain the sole county in the short history of the Munster round-robin to finish in the top-three from a midway position of zero points two games in. That was 2022.

Cork’s response in falling poorly against Clare and Limerick was to skip over the trapdoor and resuscitate their summer away to Waterford, and then Tipperary.

Entering Saturday off the back of successive defeats, it was Limerick pointing them towards the trapdoor. They refused to go.

“I suppose we always say that when our backs are to the wall that’s when we’ve been at our best over the last two or three years,” said Shane Barrett following Saturday’s season-extending victory over the champions.

“Look, we were in this position in 2022 as well. We lost the first two games, dusted ourselves down, beat Waterford, and then things opened up.

“You need a bit of luck – it’s still probably out of our control a little bit. All we can do is go up to Thurles next week and hopefully put in a performance.

"If we don’t go up to Thurles next week and perform, what was the point?”

Barrett, who was simply outstanding with 1-2 on Saturday night and the assist for Seamus Harnedy’s green flag, explained that the Cork approach in the fortnight between the Clare and Limerick fixtures was not to fixate on their summer being potentially cooked as early as May 11, rather to rise and rouse themselves for 70 minutes in isolation against the standard-bearers.

“We met up after the Clare game and just said, ‘Who cares, we want to put in a performance against a Limerick team going for five in a row’.

“If you couldn’t get up for a game like that, with a glimmer of hope of qualifying if we won our two games, you’re in the wrong sport.”

Hoggie’s penalty and Brian Hayes’ clinching point brought liberation from defeat and an end to five championship games without a win. The dam-bursting final whistle scenes, said the Cork centre-forward, will never leave him.

“You could see what it meant to the people of Cork there, the outpouring of emotion that’s probably been held inside them for the last God-knows-how-long but, particularly with this group, the last year, being on the wrong side of results – one more point last year and we’d have got out of Munster.

“Obviously, to get a day like Saturday is very special, obviously we’ll remember it for the rest of our careers, but at the end of the day it’s only two points and we regroup and we go again next week.”