CORK HURLING BOSS Jimmy Barry-Murphy admits the Rebels could have been handed a tougher run-in in this year’s All-Ireland championship.
After going down to Tipperary by a single point in last month’s Munster semi-final, Cork were drawn with Offaly in the qualifiers before beating Wexford in Thurles two weeks ago.
And Barry-Murphy, who makes four changes for Sunday’s meeting with old rivals Waterford, said: “There is no point in saying otherwise, and it’s not being disrespectful to the teams we have met, the draw has been kind to us in the last two championship games.
“We had Offaly at home which is always a great advantage, while Wexford are a team in transition, and both of those sides will admit themselves that playing in Division 1B in the league means you are not coming up against the calibre of opposition you would like to be meeting on a regular basis.
“That makes it hard to get up to the level of a Division 1A side, so the draw certainly fell our way after we lost to Tipp.
Again avoiding Kilkenny in the quarter finals is a big boost for us, because you would have to be afraid of meeting them on the rebound from their Leinster final defeat by Galway.
“Having said that, our record against Waterford over the past few years hasn’t been the best, and I thought their display was excellent in the first half of the Munster final against Tipp, so we know we are facing a big challenge on Sunday.
Cork haven’t beaten the Deise in the last five championship attempts and on Sunday’s opposition, he added:
“We know that Waterford will be hard to beat, because of their experience and their recent record against us.
“They have a number of pivotal players like Kevin Moran and Brick Walsh in the half back line, and how our half forward line fares out could have a vital bearing on the result, plus how our defence copes with John Mullane.
“We certainly don’t feel we are entitled to be favourites against teams like Waterford and Galway, and it’s hard to gauge where we are at this point.
But I believe we have made some progress, and I’d be very hopeful providing we play to the maximum of our ability we’ll be really competitive on Sunday.
“Getting to an All-Ireland quarter final would have been our minimal target at the start of the year, but we obviously want to go further now, and if we get back to the form we showed against Tipp we’ll be in with a great chance against Waterford.”
