Mark Coleman on Cork's defensive improvement: It all starts in the forward line...

Cork's Mark Coleman gets to the sliotar ahead of Peter Duggan of Clare at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Picture: INPHO/Tom O'Hanlon

Reflections on the round-robin to begin with. Munster final musings to come after. Deputising Cork captain Mark Coleman is engaging company on both subjects.

Clare’s starting six forwards managed a combined 0-1 when visiting Páirc Uí Chaoimh two weeks ago. Yes, there was woeful waste on the part of a wholly disjointed Banner attack, but credit must also be placed at the doorstep of the Cork defence.

You limit David Fitzgerald, Diarmuid Stritch, Seán Rynne, Peter Duggan, Ian Galvin, and Shane O’Donnell to a single white flag from play, and it speaks volumes to the structure and sustained application of the collective resistance.

The 3-84 Cork conceded across their four round-robin outings is well down on the corresponding 7-93 figure of 12 months ago. That’s a reduction by around 0-5 per game.

Go back another 12 months to when Cork conceded 9-98 during the 2023 provincial round-robin. This year’s total represents an average defensive improvement of 0-8 on that figure.

Not since Limerick (2-71) and Tipp (1-80) in 2019 has a county been so defensively mean and ungenerous in the Munster round-robin.

Mark Coleman hand passes to Cork team-mate Damien Cahalane at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Tom Beary/Sportsfile

Mark Coleman is an ever-present in the Cork defence. He’s played every minute of every game so far this championship. Here are his thoughts on the above numbers.

“On the defensive side of things, you can gauge fairly easily on the eye that fellas were working hard and getting plenty of hooks and blocks in. That's the main metric, really,” said the half-back.

It's probably something throughout the whole team, really. The forwards are working incredibly hard and stopping the ball coming in.

“As a defensive unit, we're probably that bit more solid, I suppose, defending as a team. For us in the half-back line, getting back and supporting the lads as best we can and just working more as a unit. But like I said, that starts up in the forward line and if they can stop the ball coming down, it makes our job a lot easier.” 

To Sunday down the Páirc. A Munster medal is a Munster medal. Its selling point needs no explanation. But you can also want one for the exclusive purpose of putting yourself on the shortest route to July 19.

“It is a short window to go out and win medals, so Munster medals, they are incredibly valuable. I have three of them, and they are the most cherished memories you have, going out and winning, that buzz in the dressing-room when you can go in and put a cup down in the middle of the dressing-room. There is nothing like that,” continued the 28-year-old.

“You can enjoy it both ways. You can say, look, we want to go out and win a Munster medal, but also knowing that that is going to get you up to where you want to be further up the road in Croke Park.” 

FOND MEMORIES

Coleman is in possession of three Munster medals. The most recently acquired is the most cherished and provides the broadest smile.

“My first two (2017 and ‘18), you probably nearly took it for granted a little bit. I didn't lose a Munster championship game until 2019. You expect it to happen the whole time. Not that you didn't have to work hard, but you didn't have to overcome adversity in any way at all.

“2025, we obviously had been through a lot over the previous years and to be able after so long to put a cup down in the middle of the dressing-room was definitely a fond memory.” 

Mark Coleman at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh ahead of the Munster hurling final. Picture: Jim Coughlan.

Darragh Fitzgibbon’s appendix surgery means the vice-captain will lead the team out this Sunday. Coleman hadn’t even thought about leading his teammates around a packed Páirc Uí Chaoimh for the pre-match parade until asked about that privilege at the county’s Munster final press event.

You have to go out and enjoy it. 

"Something I always try and make a conscious effort to do when going around in the parade, definitely for the first half of the parade, is just relax, breathe, look up, look around the crowd, enjoy it, take it in, but knowing that halfway around the parade, you lock in, you go, 'right, focus on the first ball'. You are ready to rock then.

“I do make a conscious effort in the warm-ups, going round the parade, and in the dressing-room before games just to appreciate that this isn't going to be around forever, that you try and make the most of it, and enjoy it as much as possible.”