Brian Hayes: Cork deserve place in All-Ireland final

St Finbarr's club man Hayes noted the standard that exists within the Cork training panel, a novelty that, he insists, allowed them to transfer performance levels onto the Croke Park sod.

Sun, 07 Jul, 2024 - 17:41

Shane Donovan

The Cork hurlers' bid to bridge the gap to their last All-Ireland win in 2005 will see them lock horns with Clare - whom they lost the decider to in 2013 - at Croke Park in a fortnight.

To book their All-Ireland final berth, they overcame a Limerick side with five-in-a-row aspirations.

A championship year that stuttered at the beginning with losses to both Waterford and Clare was steered back on track with a win over Sunday's opposition in Páirc Uí Chaoimh in round 3 of the Munster SHC.

That win proved to be a springboard, and Cork forward Brian Hayes - scorer of 1-4 at HQ - believes they deserve their chance to battle for hurling's biggest prize on July 21.

"It's brilliant, you know it's everything we wanted at the start of the year and it's brilliant to see the Cork crowd like this," man of the match Hayes told RTÉ post-match. "We deserve it, I think, after the first few games, we're just delighted.

"We had the two games, the preliminary quarter-final and the quarter-final, and we felt like we didn't perform as well as we wanted to.

"We hit the ground running in training and we knew that we had it when we beat Limerick the last day, so we tried to do the same thing again today."

St Finbarr's club man Hayes noted the standard that exists within the Cork training panel, a novelty that, he insists, allowed them to transfer performance levels onto the Croke Park sod.

"We're firm believers that the hardest games we're getting are internally," the former dual-star said. "Our A v B's are absolutely hopping every night and, you know, we need to drive that over the next two weeks."

Hayes lauded the impact of Irish Rugby performance coach Gary Keegan has had on the Cork squad.

"We believe 100 percent in our own team and that's a testament to Gary Keegan, we do a lot of work with him. We had that belief regardless of results. We believed and thankfully we got over the line in the end there today."

Cork boss Pat Ryan, reflecting after the narrow victory, said he was sure of there was going to be a real Rebel performance, while admitting the nervous nature of the final minutes as Limerick did their utmost to reel his side in.

"We knew we were going to perform, but this is a fantastic Limerick team, we'll celebrate our victory, but what a team they've been for the last 7/8 years.

"Look, they are driving the standards, we're all trying to catch up with them. You see where they've brought the game to, the way they play the game, the've been brilliant champions and they've brought brilliant joy to Limerick and fair play to them."

Did Ryan think they had enough done as John Kiely's Limerick clawed the Cork lead back?

"We thought they were come back and beat us like they do with everyone... but our fellas stuck in there and really ground it out. A couple of lads came on and made a difference for us.

"We've nothing won, we're into an All-Ireland final. Lads will celebrate tonight because you have to celebrate all your victories in amateur sport. We'll look after what happens with Clare next week."