Cork have no pride but I’ll root for them

THE Kerryman in me is rooting for Cork next Saturday night. I know that will hardly squeeze any extra effort out of the Rebels but they should hardly be lacking for motivation.

For starters, there is last year’s shock defeat to Tipperary to avenge but if they thought that was the moment they scraped the barrel, then they were off by a country mile.

They managed to win just two games in Division 2 in this spring, which included a defeat to Clare, but nothing could prepare their supporters for their one-point squeak past Waterford.

It is almost impossible to finger what has gone wrong with Cork football because what we are witnessing appears to be a complete meltdown.

The one thing I know they have is the talent. We have seen that up close and personal at underage level, but ultimately they are suffering from a lack of leadership, at board level, management and on the pitch.

Peadar Healy’s (above) management team is living on borrowed time, but they have not been helped by players who lacked the pride I would normally associate with Cork, with Paul Kerrigan and Donncadh O’Connor the only exceptions to that damning observation.

The consensus is that Tipperary will be the victims of a Cork backlash in Páirc Uí Rinn, but there have been ample opportunities in the recent past for this group to show that they are capable of producing such a response.

The loss of goalkeeper Evan Comerford to a suspension imposed by his own board is significant, but the key to the outcome to this game will hang on whether Michael Quinlivan will be good to go, given the speculation about his fitness.

If he is, then Tipperary will win and while I would not begrudge them the result, I don’t believe that they will road-test Kerry quite as well as Cork would in a Munster final.

That’s the thing with Cork, when they see the green and gold they can raise their game but they have to realise that the real measure of their worth is how they fare against everyone else.