DIARMUID O’SULLIVAN CAN see why the current Cork team has evoked comparisons with Jimmy Barry Murphy’s breakthrough side of 1999.
The three-time All-Ireland winner won his first Celtic Cross as part of that team 21 years ago when a bunch of youngsters ended a nine-year wait without the big prize.
O’Sullivan, fondly known as ‘the Rock’, was just 21 when his lifted the All-Ireland as captain in a team that had an average age of just 22. He’s now involved as selector with a team that had just two starters over the age of 24 in the semi-final win over Kilkenny.
“Okay, there are going to be comparisons,” he said.
“The nature of the beast is that the average age of our team is quite young, but I think that a lot of them have had good underage careers to date – okay, it hasn’t been successful, but they’ve developed.
“Some of them have developed quicker than others and we’ve guys in the 37 that we’d hope to develop going forward. As I said, we’re very happy with where the squad is.”
O’Sullivan was a player the last time Cork were crowned champions. He says his role within the Rebels squad is time-consuming, but the goal of ending a 16-year famine requires that commitment.
“It’s not a fashionable gig by any manner of means,” he stressed at Cork’s media day last weekend. “Myself, Kieran [Kingston] and Ger [Cunningham] are here since half past nine this morning, what is it now, it’s now ten past three on a Saturday.
“We’ve invested ourselves heavily in this because we believe not only in the players but the group we have around us. We invest all of our energies and spare time into it but it’s what we do, it’s what we want to do, it’s what we love.
“We’re passionate about Cork hurling and we’ll keep giving to it as long as people want us to.”
It wasn’t a difficult decision for the Cloyne man to return for a second stint as selector when the call came from Kingston.
“Absolutely not, to be honest,” he said.
“Myself and Kieran are very comfortable with each, we have great respect for each other, we both read the game similarly and have the same ideas on how we’d like the game to be played, so it was an easy decision.
“When we decided to go the last time, it was a joint decision. We have that great respect, we’re very lucky to have Ger on board with us as well, bringing his wealth of experience and knowledge at this level to the table with us.”
The nature of their extra-time win over Kilkenny, after allowing the Cats claw themselves back at the death, greatly impressed O’Sullivan.
“I think we’ve now evolved to the situation where, as a group, they’re very comfortable in dealing with setbacks,” he said.
“Whether that goal happened in the first ten minutes, the last ten minutes or the last play of the game, we’re now at a stage with this group where they can take it on the chin and regroup and settle themselves down.
“They took full ownership and responsibility of it once we hit the dressing room and that’s a credit to how much they’ve grown as a unit.”
Tim O’Mahony was caught in possession for Adrian Mullen’s late goal, but his response in extra-time was immense.
“You could see it just after the start of extra time, what did Kilkenny do? They identified Tim as the guy who was probably responsible for the concession so they pucked the next three puckouts down on top of him. What did Tim do? Caught the ball resoundingly, he drove Cork forward and we got three scores out of it.
“So that’s where we have come as a squad. Yes, we will make a mistake in the type of game that we play; yes, we will get turned over; of course, the opposition will score, but it’s about how we react and what we do after will really define the group.
“We’ve answered a lot of questions over the last number of weeks. We’ve asked a lot of our players; they’ve asked a lot of us, so we’ve now come to a stage where we’re all very comfortable with each other.
“We can deal with setbacks, they can – we’ll take out victories on their merits, park it, review it and move on.”
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