Niall O’Leary says Cork’s great wait is no extra weight burdening the players in advance of Sunday’s All-Ireland senior hurling final against Clare.
The Rebels last won the Liam MacCarthy in 2005 and the 19-year gap is the longest period Cork’s hurlers have endured without tasting All-Ireland senior glory.
But O’Leary, a history and PE teacher at St Colman’s College in Fermoy, says the current crop of players are keen to write a new chapter in the annals of Cork hurling rather than focus on the county’s fallow last two decades.
“I don’t think it will play much of a role,” says the Castlelyons clubman. “As a group, we’re at a stage where we kind of want to carve our own path and create our own history.”
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“We want to do something that we’ll be remembered for. We’re not going to be remembered for what we did against Limerick. Hopefully we can do something in the final that we will be remembered for.”
They were just seconds away from being remembered as a Cork team that failed to get out of Munster for the second year in succession.
In the third of four added minutes in the Munster round-robin clash between Cork and Limerick at Páirc Uí Chaoimh in May, the Rebels trailed by two points in a game they had to win.
Shane Kingston took off on a run, more in hope than expectation, but some brilliant trickery, improvisation and determination by the Douglas man ultimately forced Kyle Hayes to drag him down for a penalty, which Patrick Horgan converted. Cork lived to fight another day.
“It just comes down to a bit of luck,” continues O’Leary. “In the last two or three years, we’ve been so unfortunate with different results not going our way. I think it has really just come together for us this year. A couple of results went the right way for us. If you look at where we were after losing to Clare in the second round, it’s unbelievable to see how far we’ve come since.
“We’ve done a lot of waiting around as a player group to bring a bit of success back to Cork. That element has caused a lot of fellas to really push on and get over the line in different games that we might not have got over the line in before.”
O’Leary, who made his championship debut against Tipperary in 2019, will have a vital role to play in Sunday’s final as part of a Cork full-back line tasked with curtailing a formidable Clare attack.
The 26-year-old was a corner back on the Cork team in the 2021 decider loss to Limerick and he was back in Croke Park for an All-Ireland final in January of this year when Castlelyons lost their All-Ireland intermediate club showdown against Thomastown of Kilkenny. So O’Leary will be hoping for a change of script in that regard this Sunday.
One of the most significant contributions in Cork’s semi-final win over Limerick was the performance of goalkeeper Patrick Collins. He not only produced some stunning saves but his rapid puckouts had the Treaty County on the back foot all afternoon.
“These kind of fast tempo puckouts are a huge part of the game now,” says O’Leary. “As a defensive group, we really kind of pride ourselves on trying to keep a clean sheet in games and when Pa is doing things like that, you could see when he made the saves against Limerick, the kind of celebrations during the game just shows how much we appreciate it from him.”
The players and management have previously mentioned the importance of the Rebel Roar this season, and since that Munster round-robin game against Limerick in particular there has been a sense of a bond created between the team and supporters.
“The Cork public have been unbelievable throughout the years. They’ve stuck with us when things have been very bad. In the last couple of games again it has been brilliant.
“You can see the amount of people who are travelling and they’re a huge factor in how we play at times. In different periods of games when things aren’t going our way, they’re still there and they’re still roaring. You know they’re there to get you over the line at times. They’re brilliant.”
As a secondary schoolteacher, O’Leary is currently on summer holidays but when he wants to take his mind off hurling the tenacious defender mucks in around the family farm.
“I might get the role of driving the tractor instead of using the pike these days,” he smiles. “And leave the brother do the pike work.”
Because in Cork this week, all that really matters is the stick work.
