MUNSTER SFC SEMI-FINAL REPLAY:Cork's replanting has been possible by a run of success at under-21 level, but can they come up with a winning formula? asks SEAN MORAN

THE FACT that Kerry have lost so many of the players who won last September’s All-Ireland has dominated much of the thinking about the county’s chances of retaining their title. How do you replace five players on a successful team?

Their rivals tomorrow, Cork, with whom they’ve been locked in seemingly endless combat for the past few years, have been dealing with the opposite problem.

How do you evolve a successful team from one that’s been coming close but falling just short? Since Conor Counihan took up the reins not much more than two years ago he has been engaged in overhauling the team to the extent that last Sunday in Killarney, Cork’s line-out featured nine changes from the side that took the field for Counihan’s first championship meeting with Kerry 23 months ago. By contrast Kerry were exhibiting only six changes from 2008 despite the mass departure last year.

The entire Cork defence in July 2008 at Páirc Uí­ Chaoimh, Diarmuid Duggan, Derek Kavanagh, Anthony Lynch, Brian O’Regan, Ger Spillane and Kieran O’Connor had changed. Lynch is currently injured but none of the others are first-choice players any more. Graham Canty started that day at centrefield and was at full back last weekend. Half of the attack had also changed. Nicholas Murphy is injured but Seán O’Brien has left the panel and John Hayes is a replacement.

Of the replacements who came on two years ago, Michael Cussen has switched his allegiance to the hurlers and James Masters walked away earlier this year. Paul Kerrigan is now first-choice and Fintan Goold came on as a replacement last week.

Cork’s comprehensive replanting of the team has been made possible by a run of success at under-21, a four-in-a-row in Munster from 2006-09 plus two All-Irelands in that period, which yielded eight (Goold and Colm O’Neill were replacements) of the players who appeared last week.

John Cleary managed the team that won last year’s All-Ireland under-21 title and he believes that the source isn’t yet exhausted.

“I think the seniors have been helped by the number of exceptional minors coming straight out into the under-21s. Most have graduated to senior – guys like Michael Shields, Daniel Goulding, Colm O’Neill and Eoin Cadogan – and have been playing for Cork since they were 17.

“The players were there to be brought on for older guys whose date had come. I would think there are others, particularly in the forwards: Paul Honohan and Mark Collins will probably come through in the next year or so. They’re different eras but I don’t think there have been as many quality forwards in Cork since the late 1980s.”

The need for ongoing maintenance of the team is only part of the imperative. There is also an unspoken desire to hand on the baton to a generation of players, whose dealings with Kerry haven’t been as blighted as the county’s senior teams in recent years.

The idea is that by bringing in players who have been beating Kerry in their underage inter-county career, the team will be less inhibited. Against that, some of the younger players have been exposed to three years of drawing blanks against Kerry in Croke Park and last Sunday there was a Groundhog Day quality to how Cork gained the upper hand, then threw away a match winning position.

“The danger would be that that could keep going on,” says Cleary. “It needs to change and I think it will because Kerry are going to have to replace a lot of players. It’s only a matter of time before Cork turn the corner in Croke Park.”

On the brighter side, the two of those making their full debut, Aidan Walsh and Jamie O’Sullivan, had good games in difficult positions. Walsh at just 19, played centrefield and although he started nervously and kicked poorly his fielding of high ball was so accomplished that Cork were calling kick-outs on him in the closing stages.

O’Sullivan was picked in the corner to mark Colm Cooper in Killarney and didn’t do badly on Kerry’s best forward limiting him to one point from play and – strictly interpreted – one assist, for Barry John Keane’s point, but didn’t foul him for any of the converted frees.

With the rising talent, Cork’s problem has been described as having a very strong panel but insufficient idea of what constitutes the best team.

Cleary doesn’t accept that this is a drawback. “I don’t think so. If you look at Kerry and Tyrone, who have won all the recent All-Irelands they’ve been doing it with a strong bench – 18, 19, 20 players who can play in any game. The days of having the bare 15 no matter how good they are, are gone. The fifth sub can be the difference between winning an All-Ireland and not.”

The anxiety that continues to haunt Cork is that they simply don’t believe that they’ll beat Kerry when it’s all being played for keeps in Croke Park. After two seasons of evolving and introducing new players, they still arrived at last September’s final and despite a flying start proceeded to underperform.

For most observers this has to be the season that the corner is turned. Cleary remains convinced.

“Everyone in Cork expected last year’s final to be a 50-50 game and it was a real disappointment not to win it. But having failed to do it, there’s a ferocious hunger to improve and come back. It drove them through the league and sent them down to Killarney expecting to win against the All-Ireland champions.”

They’ll expect to win tomorrow as well but what will they be expecting in August or September?