Championship 2026: How likely is the Limerick-Cork collision course? 

The Munster championship throws in once more on Sunday.

Limerick's Barry Nash with Declan Dalton of Cork. Pic: INPHO/Tom O’Hanlon

After Cork and Limerick met in their regular league game in the Gaelic Grounds in March, Ben O’Connor was interviewed by Micheál Ó Domhnaill on TG4. After four successive wins, Ó Domhnaill said that defeat was always going to arrive at some stage. Except O’Connor didn’t agree with that assessment, or assumption.

“I wouldn’t say that, that defeat was always going to come,” said the Cork manager. “We came down here fully confident. We picked a team to win every league game, and we fully expected to win tonight. A lot of people might be doubting that, but we really expected to win here.”

That may have been the ambition, but it was still highly aspirational considering the make-up of both teams; Cork started with just six of the team that had started the 2025 Munster final; Limerick had 13 starters from that match.

How badly did Cork want to win either? They clearly changed their puckout strategy in the second half by consistently going long. Cork had done well on their own restart in the opening half, winning 75 per cent. There was no apparent need to shake it up, but O’Connor appeared willing to gamble by not wanting to give Limerick any insight into what they might do in the championship.

The league final was different because a national title was on the line. Cork were poor on the day but O’Connor said afterwards that they “got exactly what they wanted out of the league, only we didn’t get the cup”. Still, O’Connor has been consistent in his messaging all year of Cork wanting to win every match.

It’s been a similar theme with John Kiely, who from day one has been keen for Limerick to return to one of the governing principles that made them great – consistency of results and performance by winning every game.

January’s Munster league success was Limerick’s fourth Munster league title from the last six competitions. Winning a trophy with loads of internal competition for places is how Kiely has always liked Limerick to roll. But that’s not how they rolled last season when Limerick failed to win a trophy for the first under Kiely since 2017.

Their league title two weeks ago was their fourth on Kiely’s watch. Having already bagged the Munster league and national league titles, Limerick’s next target now is to do what they last did in 2023 by adding the Mick Mackey and Liam MacCarthy Cups.

Cork also have those targets in mind. Both sides want to keep winning every match but that will still require one of them doing something that has never been done before in the history of the round robin.

In that six-year history, no team has managed to win every single championship game in an All-Ireland winning season. Limerick in 2022 were the only side who came close when winning six and drawing one. That draw came against Clare in Limerick’s final round robin match when they had already qualified for a Munster final.

In the intervening seasons though, it’s been getting harder for Munster teams to win every championship match. Limerick only won two of their six games last summer. For all of their perceived all-conquering dominance up until the second half of the All-Ireland final last year, Cork still only won (outside of penalties) three of their seven championship matches after normal or extra-time. When Clare and Cork met in the 2024 All-Ireland final, it was the first time that both All-Ireland finalists had reached the biggest day despite already having lost two championship games.

Despite what O’Connor and Kiely want their teams to do, is it actually possible to win every championship game? It is. But it’s a monumental task.

“It can be done but it’s unbelievably hard when you look at the bearpit of the Munster championship,” says Padraic Maher, former Tipperary player. “Despite what they might say, all any manager in Munster wants at this moment is to get into the top three.

“It doesn’t really matter how many games you win, getting out is the only target that matters at the start of the championship. If four points was enough to qualify, any manager would take just two wins. They’d even take four draws. Getting to a Munster final is a bonus after that. Then you can really focus on winning it. But if you were to say to any manager in Munster now that their team will be into the top three, they’d take your hand off for it.”

In the two seasons that Tipperary won the All-Ireland in the round robin era – 2019 and 2025 – they shipped one unmerciful beating in those campaigns: the 2019 Munster final, and in round 2 last year against Cork.

Cork looked untouchable that afternoon last April and then Limerick smashed them by 16 points in their next match two weeks later. Limerick looked unstoppable too in that 2019 Munster final. But when Kilkenny halted their charge in an All-Ireland semi-final four weeks later, it was Limerick’s third defeat of that 2019 championship.

Limerick did win every single game of the 2020 and 2021 championships. But the round robin wasn’t in place during those two seasons. The competitiveness of that system in Munster is just brutal. As All-Ireland champions, Clare won just won game last year – a dead rubber against Limerick in the final round. As reigning All-Ireland champions, how many games will Tipperary win in this championship? Will they even qualify from the province?

“As a Tipp person, I’d be fairly confident that we’ll go very close against Cork in the first round,” says Maher. “Cork will come into Thurles that afternoon not knowing what Tipp are going to do. Are they going to play a sweeper, or are they going to play more conventional?

“After what happened in the All-Ireland final, I think Tipp could have Cork’s heads scrambled before the match even begins. If Tipp can win that game, they’ll be in a great position. But if they don’t, they’ll have a lot of work to do to get out. Especially when they have to go to Walsh Park a week later.” 

It's a similar scenario for Cork, who have Limerick coming to town the following week. “It might sound crazy, but Cork could nearly be out of the championship after seven days,” says Maher. “They could find themselves under severe pressure after the first week.” So could Limerick, who go to Ennis a week after that Cork match. Limerick also have a brutal schedule of four games in 28 days.

One of the greatest challenges with the round robin format is the emotional investment required that doesn’t exist during the league. Managing those emotions, and how certain teams react to setbacks, is what ultimately distinguishes how well – or how well set up – a team will do in a condensed championship.

Getting to that pitch of emotional engagement every week is extremely difficult. In the six-year history of the Munster round robin, teams have only managed to win successive games in successive weeks on just 11 occasions; Clare (2018, 2022, 2023, 2024), Limerick (2019, 2022, 2024), Tipperary (2019, 2025), Cork (2022, 2024).

Tipp were the only team to manage it last year. Clare appeared to have mastered the art when managing that feat on four occasions in the first five campaigns. Prior to last year, that consistency, and being able to constantly arrive at the right mental and physical pitch for big games in such a short period of time, was one of the main reasons why Clare were able to accumulate 29 points from the 40 that were up for grabs in the first five round robin competitions.

That ultra-consistency made Clare Limerick’s biggest challengers when Kiely’s side were in their pomp, with the sides meeting in three successive Munster finals between 2022-’24. In each of those seasons, there was the potential for Clare and Limerick to do something that had never been done before (outside of replays) – meet in the championship on three occasions. But it never happened.

Now that Cork and Limerick are dominating the hurling narrative, a lot of the discussion since their regular league game in March was that the sides could yet meet five times in the space of five months. The league final was round 2. Round 3 arrives on April 26th. Potential Munster final and All-Ireland final match-ups are possible. But how realistic is that either?

“Cork and Limerick will have to go on a fair run for that to happen,” says Maher. “I couldn’t say for certain that both teams will even get out of Munster. To say that they might meet five times in one season is a bit of a lottery.

“There are so many obstacles in your way to try and go unbeaten, never mind trying to win every championship match now. For any side to go right through from the first round of the Munster championship to an All-Ireland final without being beaten, they’d be some team.” 

O’Connor and Kiely may want to win every game, but they also know that the only bottom line for now is to qualify from Munster. The amount of wins and points accumulated to do so is irrelevant.

Just get enough to get out.