Talking point: Should Cork be feeling the fear?

Clare have beaten Cork 16 times in championship hurling and nine of them have come in the 31 years since 1993.

Sat, 20 Jul, 2024 - 17:43

John Coleman

In May of 1993, the diet of an 11-year-old Cork supporter was all milk and honey. If life on the terraces is akin to a form of addiction, then those first hits that you had been exposed to from 1988 onwards were on par with a famous Irvine Welch novel. Spectacular lows would follow, of course, but that's the thing with addiction, nobody tells you there’ll be days like those.

1991 was the only year that hadn't ended with an All-Ireland final. You were living through a golden epoch, no the golden epoch of Cork football, and the hurlers were the hurlers. Even while rebuilding they could come good, quickly, dare I say it, like… You had seen it all. Munster titles, All-Ireland crowns, a couple of leagues and even a once in a century event, the double.

Croke Park was like your second home. If you had only made five or six of the 11 championship trips to HQ in that time, there's no way in the world that anybody could have explained to you the real extent of your blessing.

Meath started off as the bane of your life, but 1990 made you understand the power of catharsis, even if you had no idea what the word meant. Kilkenny had taught you a lesson that you'd never forget, but your love affair with the greatest game of them all, Cork vs Tipp was all engrossing. Two wins, a draw, two losses. Donkeys, derbies and dynamite.

Clare were not a factor in your sporting world. Waterford had shook you to the core in 1989 with a generational event, but in 1988 Clare had been the perfect team for your championship debut in Thurles, 3-22 to 2-9. The journey to that game was littered with references to the 1986 Munster final, and how close it was. However, just like 1977 and 1978, everything ended up alright.

In fact, in May of 1993 you were far more aware of the Clare footballers. Marty Morrissey made everybody smile with his yarn about cows and milking after they shocked Kerry in 1992. There was plenty of chuckling around the place after that. You joined in, even if you didn't really understand it. After all, you were spoilt, rotten.

You went to Ennis to watch Colin Corkery put everything right in the world, again. You would never forget the atmosphere.

So, when June came around, and it was Cork and Clare again in the hurling, this time in Limerick, you expected. Clare won by 2-7 to 0-10. It really, really hurt, even more so after Tipp eviscerated them in the Munster final. You were consoled by the probability that the 3-game league saga with Wexford just took too much out of Cork.

In 1994 Limerick ended the summer before it started, but when 1995 came around, you expected. You wondered how the Sparrow and Fingers earned their names but again, in the end, your expectations were wrong. This time Clare went on and shook the world. Cork had a loss against Limerick a year later that shook them to their roots.

When 1997 rolled around, it was a complete role reversal. Clare were the best team around. A four-point defeat was respectable but a year later, just when you thought everything was on the up, they blew Cork away in Thurles with one of the meanest performances you'd ever seen.

And then things returned to normal, for a while. 1999 sparked another period of hegemony, but there was to be no turning back. By the time that great Clare team shuffled off the stage, their legacy was multifaceted; what they had won, and what they had sparked, the way they did it. Daly, Fitzgerald, and now, Lohan have kept the link alive on the sideline, and on the field, four All-Ireland U-21 titles between 2009 and 2014 ensured that nobody like Biddy Early could cast a spell over them again, because the footprints of the men of ’95 and ’97 meant that those titles would not go to waste.

The Cork and Clare rivalry has ebbed and flowed since. In 2013, they could not avoid one another. Clare relegated Cork after an epic encounter, Cork countered in the first round of the Munster championship, then there was the drawn final, and then Shane O’Donnell announced his arrival on the national stage as another Rubicon was crossed.

Cork may have come out on top in the next five encounters after that, including two Munster Finals in Thurles, but for whatever reason Clare lost those two finals, it had nothing to do with the sight of the blood and bandage. Those old robes have been well and truly cast aside. When the Cork minors destroyed Clare at minor level in 2021, it might have felt as if nature was healing on Leeside. However, Clare have dominated them since and caused two excellent Cork teams as much trouble as anybody at U20 level.

If there is a fear factor going into the weekend, it should probably be on Leeside. Clare have beaten Cork 16 times in championship hurling and nine of them have come in the 31 years since 1993. One quarter of them have come since 2019 with the only exception being 2021 when Patrick Collins denied Tony Kelly at the death.

That defeat made Clare meaner, stronger, hungrier, better. Cork will have to be even meaner, stronger, hungrier and better if they are to have a chance of prevailing.