Cork star Sean Og O hAilpin admits the prospect of derailing Kilkenny’s bid for an unprecedented five-in-a-row will be the ultimate incentive for the Leesiders in two weeks’ time.
Cork set up an All-Ireland semi-final date with their oldest and fiercest rivals with a comfortable victory over Antrim at Croke Park on Saturday.
O hAilpin, who has sat out the games against Antrim and Waterford in the Munster final replay with a hamstring injury, concedes that Cork must leave all their recent form behind them to trouble the Cats – but that the incentive of ending Kilkenny’s five-in-a-row challenge will give the underdogs massive motivation.
In this week’s exclusive column for JOE, the Cork veteran wrote, “We all know what’s ahead of us now. Okay, it’s Kilkenny, the best team in the country by a mile. You don’t want to meet them at the semi-final stage but whether it’s the semi-final or final, you have to meet the best some time.
“That’s the way we’ll be looking at it. And to be honest we’re happy enough to get a crack at them to try and stop the five-in-a-row. It would be great to have that on your CV. Everyone remembers the Offaly players of ’82. Matt Connor, the Lowrys.
“They were great footballers and you probably would have known all about them anyway, but they’re even more famous because they were the ones who stopped Kerry’s five-in-a-row. Who scored the winning goal? Seamus Darby. Common knowledge in GAA circles.”
For the rest of Sean Og’s column, in which he talks about a Tipp-Galway cracker, Cork’s victory over Antrim and a storm in a teacup surrounding his comments about the Saffrons, click here.
