Author: Eoin Keane
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Patrick Horgan and the Eternal Quest
In the end, Patrick Horgan’s greatness was defined not by medals, but by moments of magic. The Celtic Cross may have eluded him, but he leaves the stage owing us nothing.
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Failing and Flying
Cork hurling lends itself almost too easily to the lore of Greek mythology. And in the wake of Pat Ryan’s departure, it’s Icarus that springs most readily to mind.
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Rebels weep
The sleveen Rudyard Kipling wrote some shite about how you are a man “if you can meet triumph with disaster and treat those two imposters just the same”, but you’ve no meas in that stoic, stiff upper lip bollix of the British Empire. Rebels weep.
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Back to the Old House
It’s weeks like these when we find ourselves drawn to the games that came before. History, flawed and fickle as it is, becomes the lens through which we try to glimpse the future.
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Feeding the Multitudes
When it comes to All-Ireland finals, the ticket scramble is, and always will be, the game before the game.
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The Hype Train
60,000 Cork supporters travelled up to the capital yesterdayl. If that’s what ‘hype’ looks like, then I’m all for. And I’ll say this much; there are plenty of counties out there that could use a bit of hype.
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Looking beyond The Pale
Over-confident? Complacent? Probably. But as supporters, that’s part of the deal. We dream ahead, talk big, and then blame the team for losing focus if it all unravels. Just the beautiful contradiction of fandom.
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That Ultimate Freedom
What we came for was a performance, to close that yawning sixteen-point gap and to prove that if we crossed paths for a third time, a win might no longer be out of reach. No matter which way the penalties fell, the what preceded them gave us that.
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Final, not final
Saturday’s sequel isn’t do or die by any means. But we need to see something.
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Red Mist
A game spoiled by a red card. Still, if a ruined spectacle has to be sacrificed, so be it.
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Doing it by Halves
I guess it was never going to be that simple. It rarely is with this team. Maybe Ennis was the reminder we all needed — them and us alike.
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Easter Expectations
Clare have beaten us every which way over the past number of years. Nobody is getting ahead of themselves, despite what the bookies may think.
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Written in the scars
Is Cork’s victory really written in the stars? Or more aptly, written in the scars of over a decade of heartbreak.
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Feeding the Multitude
The ticket scramble is, and always will be, the game before the game.
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One More Day
Whatever way the cards may fall next weekend, the events of last Saturday evening mean that we’ve one more week and one more day following Cork.
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We’ll go on
We lose. We try again. We lose again. We lose better. Now we just need to actually win a game.
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So close, but just how far?
A deserved exit. But at least we went out on our sword. And if Limerick are indeed on the wane, could Pat Ryan’s charges be the ones to fill the impending power vacuum?
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Halfway there. Living on a prayer?
The midway point in an unforgiving Munster championship. Two trips to Ennis and Limerick await. No one said it would be easy.
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Remembering 2013: The Revolution Year
The 2013 All-Ireland Hurling Championship brought excitement and unpredictability, not seen since The ‘Revolution Years’ of the mid-90’s.
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Setanta 3:7
It’s said that a flame that burns twice as bright burns for half as long. As it was with Setanta, who for one glorious summer, lit up the hurling world. Then he was gone.
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What’s another year?
Another year down. Another year no closer to where we want to be.
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Staying alive
We are making it up as we go along. But at least we’re still going along.
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How far we done fell
Just another pasting. Just another polemic.
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Nothing but the same old story
Kieran Kingston said that last Sunday’s defeat won’t define our season. But unless something drastically improves, it could well define not just this season but this entire, wretched era.
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Limerick looms large
When Cork last tasted national league glory, all of twenty-four years ago, they did so on the back of an eleven-point semi-final victory over Clare. Such was the manner of Clare’s insipid display that day in Thurles, that rumours soon began to reverberate around the watering holes of Munster. The general consensus was that Clare…
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Final Desperation
Seven weeks ago, in the Munster semi-final, Cork did a lot of things right and Limerick did a lot of things wrong. Yet when all was said and done, eight points still separated the sides. Last weekend, Cork did a lot of things wrong, and Limerick did almost everything right. Do the maths yourself.
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No treasure but hope
There is no logical argument you can make in favour of a Cork win next Sunday. But who needs logic anyhow?
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And then there were four
Few would have expected us to have outlasted both Galway and Tipp back in June and even fewer would have expected us to be entering into an All-Ireland semi-final against Kilkenny with such unabashed confidence. Yet here we are.
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A different animal
Previous iterations would have wilted in the tropical Limerick sun. However, this Cork side is a different animal to that which went before.
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Stepping Stone: How Cork U21 teams have backboned senior success
While a u-21 All-Ireland title would be welcomed with open arms in Cork, the true success of this crop of hurlers won’t become apparent for years to come.
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Come at the King, you best not miss
Cork did a lot right. Limerick did a lot wrong. But just doing a lot right was never going to be enough.
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Championship Preview: The truth is we don’t know anything
In the wake of the leagueiest league that has ever leagued, predictions are an act of folly. The truth is we haven’t a clue.
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Limerick ’01
Twenty years ago, a Limerick side that hadn’t won a championship game in four years travelled to Cork to face the provincial champions. A culmination of off-field and on-field drama saw the underdogs prevail.
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Here we go again
Here we go again. Once more unto the breach, you could say, to give our own tragicomedy its appropriate Shakespearian inflection. One year down the line, twelve months of more stops and starts than the RTÉ player and what have we got to show for ourselves at the end of it all? Nothing but bad haircuts…
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Rebel Tea Party: Thirty years on from the Cork’s first jersey sponsorship
30 years ago, the GAA made the seismic decision to allow jersey sponsorship and Cork GAA, in tandem with Barry’s Tea, became the commercial trailblazers in a brave new world.
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Hurling and Science – incompatible foes?
This afternoon, Cork claimed their third BT Young Scientist award in five years. But at what cost?
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Green with Envy
Is it too early to talk about the next great hurling dynasty? Unfortunately, I don’t think it is.
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Tippical!
We won the lottery, then died the next day. Just one more massive let-down to add to the list then.
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And that’s that
Last Saturday, Cork showed that they are not soft and they’re not afraid of hard graft. But they’re not in the quarter-finals either.
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We’re back. For now at least.
Cork answered a lot of questions last Saturday. But they’ll have more to answer next Saturday.
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Old dogs for the hard road. But will these dogs ever have their day?
Old habits die hard for a Cork team trapped in a perpetual cycle of relapses. Change is needed.
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The ‘Top 10 Club’: 50 years of hurling’s greatest scorers
It is not inconceivable that Joe Canning will break Henry Shefflin’s all-time championship scoring record this year, 10 years after Shefflin broke Keher’s.
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A Summer like no other
Deserted stadia and crowded streets. It’s been the strangest of summers.
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The more things change: 1978, Páirc debts and championship restructures
42 years ago, as Cork GAA tried to alleviate the crippling debt left over from the construction of Páirc Úi Chaoimh, a new club championship format was introduced.
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The most competitive club championship in Ireland?
While many different metrics can be used to gauge the competitiveness of the GAA’s club championships, the wealth, or lack of, competition can be ascertained, at least to a certain extent, by examining the spread of finalists in each county.
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Club v County: How this year’s championships might provide the catalyst for change
It may have taken a global health crisis and the complete cessation of sport for three months, but maybe the GAA might emerge from its hibernation with a feasible solution to its perennial fixtures problem. Or at the very least, something vaguely resembling a feasible solution.
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Just let us hurl
Should training sessions involving a limited number of personnel be permitted, it stands to reason that teams at the lowest rung of the GAA ladder, your Junior B’s and Junior C’s of this world, teams with which ‘training in small numbers’ is usually a given, should be the first to dip their toes into the…
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10 years on: When Aisake rocked Tipp
Ten years ago this month, an old and unfancied Cork team welcomed the All-Ireland runners-up, Tipperary to the Park. Aided by a man mountain at full-forward, it proved to be the last kick from a dying team.
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The summer’s out of reach
John Horan practically dismissed all hopes of an All-Ireland championship last weekend. What are we going to do with ourselves now?
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The 1905 All-Ireland Final: How a mole in the camp cost Cork a Championship
115 years ago, hostility abounded between two of Cork’s most prestigious hurling clubs. Did this bitterness give rise to the espionage which ultimately thwarted Cork’s All-Ireland ambitions?
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Finbarr Delaney holds a peculiar place in Cork’s record books.
A dual minor All-Ireland winner, at one time Finbarr Delaney was one of the most prolific forwards in Cork hurling.
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Niall Mac, 2004 and that point
Even in times so devoid of sporting commentary and parochial discord, comparing Niall McCarthy to D.J. Carey is probably as futile an exercise as can possibly be conceived. Yet here we are.
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“Sleep and not Death”: When the GAA ceased in Munster
The epic story of the 1920 Munster Championship is a timely reminder that sport in Ireland has persevered through testing times before. It will return. At some stage.
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When the wall came down: The devolution of Cork’s half-back line
John Gardiner, Ronan Curran and Sean Og O’hAilpin used once reign supreme. Since their departure, they’ve proved a tough act to follow.
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Keep On Keeping On: GAA in a Post-Corona World
It may not be the pandemic the GAA wants, but maybe it’s the pandemic it needs.
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Corona Chaos: Uncertain times for sport
A nation holds it’s breath as the sporting calendar grinds to a halt.
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Kearney embodied the saying about the size of the dog in the fight
Unless this Cork team win an All-Ireland, they will eternally be shackled by connotations surrounding flakiness and timidity. As a player who embodied the old saying about the size of the dog in the fight, the same can never be said about Daniel Kearney.
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Hurling League Preview: The Cooper Expirement and The Lehane Dilemma
The Cork hurlers 2020 campaign begins in earnest on Sunday. Grounds for experimenation, integration and rejuvenation. But at the end of the day, it’s still only the league.
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Buds of optimism emerge from Winter of Discontent
It’s been an eventful off-season for many of the Championship’s main contenders. Amid the madness, tenuous buds of optimism can be drawn.
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Dissecting the Decade: The changing face of Cork football
75 players have played championship football for Cork this decade. After years of anguish, a revival is finally in sight.
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The decade that’s been: Ten years of false dawns
We were back, we were miles off, we were back again, we were years away. Cork’s hokey-pokey decade.
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Patrick Horgan and the Eternal Quest
Continued excellence against the backdrop of perennial underachievement. Patrick Horgan’s twelve seasons in the Blood and Bandage.
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Four Kings: The Class of ’08
In June 2008, Patrick Horgan, Seamus Callanan, T.J Reid and Joe Canning all made their intercounty debuts. Since then, they have been at the forefront of hurling’s golden age of scoring.
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Dissecting the Decade: Feeding grounds for Cork hurling (2010-19)
Since 2010, 64 players have hurled for Cork in the heat of championship, representing a total of 32 clubs.
Bold Thady Quill 