O'Connor wary but Cork struggling for Munster relevance

In the picturesque setting of Muckross House last month, Kerry manager Jack O'Connor was among those interviewed as part of the launch for the Munster football championship.

The Kingdom had yet to play the league final against Mayo, but that perhaps suited even better. Get the media obligation out of the way nice and early, similar to All-Ireland finalists arranging press duties the day after a semi-final success.

The issue for the hacks is the lack of a storyline. Kerry are bidding for a 12th title in 13 seasons and the average margin of victory in their last four finals is 16 points, up from 10 points for the four finals prior to Tipperary’s unlikely 2020 success.

Cork, while making incremental progress overall under John Cleary thanks to successive quarter-final appearances, before bowing out a round earlier against Louth last year, have one championship win over their neighbours since 2012.

Mark Keane etched his name into Cork GAA folklore in the throws of a pandemic to sink Kerry, before Tipperary assumed the giant-killing role a fortnight later to claim a first Munster title in 85 years.

Clare’s Class of 92 brought home just a second-ever provincial title and have lost their five subsequent final appearances by an aggregate of 48 points.

Waterford and Limerick have one title each, the Déise the most recent winners with their sole success coming 46 years after the end of the Great Famine.

For all of the above the Munster SFC has become a hard sell, Kerry’s annual easing through the early stages of the season in third gear, unsure of where they stand in the greater scheme of things.

It was something RTÉ Sport’s Marty Morrissey put to O’Connor last month, suggesting that Munster had become something of a doddle and not the best preparation for a team harbouring All-Ireland ambitions.

"I’m not too sure about a doddle now, Marty. That seems to be a perception by you and the press," he said.

"The facts are, two years ago we had a very tough battle with Cork in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, there was only two points in it.

"Last year there was only three points in it in Killarney. In Páirc Uí Rinn (2022) they gave us an absolute bellyful of it for ages and we only pulled away in the last 10 minutes when we brought on a few substitutes."

Cork manager John Cleary, left, and his Kerry counterpart Jack O'Connor shake hands after last year's Munster semi-final

It marks a change from some of the trimmings handed down to the Rebels. While there was always a sense that Kerry were playing within themselves, they were at the very least having to work for the win.

O’Connor has faced accusations of dipping into the cuteness and 'yerra’ culture on occasions, but his argument over Cork’s improvement, on the scoreboard at least, was built on solid ground. Where he may have stretched the credibility somewhat was his view that there is "a great buzz approaching the (Munster) championship".

His first Munster final managing against Cork in 2005 saw 32,000 pass through the turnstiles on Leeside. Their most recent provincial decider, Kerry’s 1-19 to 3-10 success at Páirc Uí Chaoimh six years ago, drew in a little over 18,000. Two years ago that dropped to 14,000.

On the weekend the Munster hurling championship begins with a bang – a rerun of last year’s All-Ireland final when Cork make the trip to Clare as early Liam MacCarthy favourites – the relatively low-key build-up to the traditional cornerstone of the football version is a sign of the general apathy around the fixture.

The reasons put forward for Cork’s struggles in recent years are wide and varied, but a strong argument would suggest that the Leesiders’ demise can be traced back to 2015. (A year previous they suffered a crushing Munster final loss to the Kingdom in the final match at the old Páirc Uí Chaoimh, but that was out of kilter with matches between the two for the most part and were only edged out of an All-Ireland semi-final after a thrilling one-point defeat to Mayo later that summer).

The Rebels reached a Division 1 decider that spring, beating Dublin along the way before being demolished by Jim Gavin’s side at the showpiece in Croke Park, where the men in red had to wait until the 48th minute to register their first score from play with a Mark Collins goal.

Three months later, Fionn Fitzgerald’s injury-time equaliser denied Cork a famous provincial title on Kingdom soil.

Fionn Fitzgerald kicks the equalising point against Cork in the 2015 Munster football final

Kerry finished the job off at the second bite of the cherry, with Cork making a speedy exit against Kildare next time out.

In the jockeying to be the 'best of the rest' in Munster, pressure has been ramped up on Cork to unprecedented levels.

The following year, Cork and Clare moved in opposite league directions to ensure they would be keeping Division 2 company in 2017, with Clare’s early season victory over the Rebels described as a "famous win". With Colm Collins raising standards, they finished ahead of Cork in the league in five of the next six years.

Championship encounters have been few and far between, a win each in the last two seasons, though Clare’s failure to emerge from Division 3 has seen them slip off the pace somewhat.

The Rebels have dealt with a raft of changes to their panel this year between retirements and players stepping away – Steven Sherlock and Kevin Flahive among them – but the spine of the team has a settled look to it, with a sprinkling of new faces tried out during the league.

Seán McDonnell (above) has made an impression in the full-forward line and picked off four points last time out against Limerick, Neil Lordan has nailed down a spot in the full-back line while Brian O’Driscoll has shown his prowess from outside the arc.

Kerry will be without midfielder Diarmuid O’Connor and Dara Moynihan, while Seanie O’Shea could feature after his recent absence.

O’Connor is facing into his 16th championship game against Cork, reminding everyone that two of the three defeats under his watch, 2006 and 2009, were by a considerable margin.

On both occasions the Kingdom regrouped to finish the year in possession of Sam Maguire, but Cork back then were contenders in their own right.

The spread for the 124th championship meeting of the teams is at eight points and the boffins compiling the odds give Meath a better chance of taking down Dublin than the traditional Munster derby going the way of the underdogs.

It may not be a doddle, bit it's not much of a rivalry either.

Watch Roscommon v Galway in the Connacht Football Championship on Sunday from 3.45pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1

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