Strength in depth driving Cork on, says O'Leary 

The Rebels kept their good form going with a win at Kilkenny on Sunday. 

Kilkenny's Mossy Keoghan kicks away from Cork's Niall O'Leary. Pic: INPHO

As Ben O’Connor gave his post-match interview outside the Cork dressing room underneath the Ted Carroll Stand on Sunday, inside it the players were singing with gusto Frank and Seán O’Meara’s “Grace”. Four wins from four, they will want to “make this moment linger”.

O’Connor made nine personnel alterations for the game against Kilkenny but on the final scoreboard it was plus ça change. That the manager wasn’t aware he oversaw such an overhaul from the previous win over Tipperary three weeks ago indicates he is picking on form and defender Niall O’Leary is feeling it.

“We were even talking about it coming down (to Kilkenny), looking at the fellas that are out injured at the moment, and looking at the panel that went out there today, the strength in depth in the panel there at the moment is huge,” says O’Leary. “It's only driving the training even better again, which is great to see.

“You can see he's picking the panel on what's going well in training and stuff. Fellas are really on their toes every day going out, so it's a great thing to have. Hopefully, that will stand to us going forward.” 

At the other end of the field, O’Leary was thrilled to see starlets Barry and Alan Walsh land Cork’s second-half goals. “I'm delighted for the two of them. They’re flying in training, to be fair to them.

“They’re great young fellas and they really have a good insight into how to play at inter-county level too, they’ve played under-age with Cork.” 

Facing a second-half gale on Sunday, O’Leary and his team-mates braced themselves for drudgery. They may have lost the half but it didn’t matter.

“We knew at half-time that we could do better too as well. We discussed a few things – we probably weren't using the ball as well as we could have, so we knew we were going to do a bit of a dogfight there in the second half, trying to work it through. But look, we pride ourselves on working through the lines too, so it was great to see we could play it both ways.” 

A repeat of last year’s Munster final in the same TUS Gaelic Grounds venue this Saturday is sure to redouble focus in sessions this week.

Another meeting with Limerick in Limerick in the Division 1A final on Easter Sunday next month appears to be on the cards but O’Leary’s attention is very much on the now: “You can see Limerick are flying it as well in the league. They're going really well, so we're going down there with a tough game ahead of us. Hopefully, if we can get in a good performance, things might go our way as well.” 

Another large Cork presence is expected at the Ennis Road venue. Almost 75,000 have taken in their four fixtures thus far and in UPMC Nowlan Park the players made a point of mingling with their following afterwards.

“You’d say we were in Páirc Uí Rinn or Páirc Uí Chaoimh with the support we had from the Cork fans,” remarked O’Leary. “They’ll travel everywhere for us, even with the weather on Sunday, it was a horrible day, they still came down and it got us through the line. We’re very appreciative to have them there.”