The back of the Kilkenny Design Centre is where winners go to puck around.
Some poor quality attempts at striking here it must be said.
Very 1980âs
I must have been watching different matches,
Touch of sour grapes methinks 
Cork will lose for Cadoganâs choice of foot and sock (or lack of it) wear.
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Seems a bit mad. If they lose this will be cited.
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Corkâs bus was too big.
The sun appears to be coming out to play in Dublin.
Advantage Cork.
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JOHN CONLON INTERVIEW
John Conlon: Go out and enjoy it. You donât know when itâs going to end
Clare legend has changed positions, overcome injuries and gone to great lengths to find marginal gains during the course of his career. Now he is hoping to repeat the All-Ireland success of 2013
Christy OâConnor
Sunday July 21 2024, 12.01am BST, The Sunday Times
John Conlon was six when Clare reached the 1995 All-Ireland final, too young to go, but old enough to feel aggrieved at not being brought. His cousin babysat. As Conlon was watching the minor game, he closed the curtains to stop the sun glaring off the TV. His cousin pulled them back, not wanting the room to be dark. Conlon rebelled and ran out the door, smoke billowing from his ears.
His patience had already been stretched by not being in Croke Park so Conlon staged a silent protest. He didnât need bolshie language to convey his anger. Conlon disappeared for an hour, but brinksmanship wasnât an option with the senior match approaching. He walked into the room and quietly accepted the terms of agreement.
Two years later, domestic negotiations were unnecessary. Conlon sat in the old Nally Stand with a group of his U10 Clonlara team-mates for the 1997 All-Ireland final. He was still only eight but that Clare teamâs lure and legacy had already drawn him into the only world Conlon ever wanted to occupy.
âI remember going around the back garden after those All-Irelands wanting to be Jamesie OâConnor,â he says now. âJamesie was my hero. I wanted to play in All-Ireland finals. Thatâs every childâs dream. You want to get back there. You want to make a difference, to be a good role model, to push on to try and keep Clare at the top table.â
Nobody has been more faithful to that childhood covenant. Sunday will be Conlonâs 66th championship appearance, six more than any other Clare player has managed, his 175th appearance in total, 21 more than any other player from the county has accumulated. This side may have more marquee names but Conlon has long been the moral consciousness of this group.
Crossing new frontiers has always been a central part of his identity. Before Clareâs golden generation arrived in the early part of the last decade, Conlon was a central figure in the age of enlightenment which preceded it, playing a key role on the side which won the countyâs first All-Ireland U21 title in 2009.
He had already made his senior debut by then. He was a pillar of the Clare attack during the first 11 seasons of his career before Brian Lohan decided to turn Conlon into a centre back. Conlon had never played there before, but he embraced that challenge. When he was named the All-Star centre back last November, Conlon became just the fourth hurler to win awards in defence and attack, after Brian Corcoran, Brian Whelehan and Ken McGrath.
That is the exalted company Conlon keeps but learning a new role also meant having to change his style. The modern game required him to be a playmaker so he devised new individual routines and training practices. Conlon studied other players. But he studied himself first.
âFor the first two or three games I was like trying to be like a forward, running out through tackles for every ball,â Conlon says. âI realised that I needed to go diagonal, to go across the field, to play the pass easier, to see things around you. I looked closely at certain aspects of Declan Hannon and Mark Colemanâs play, watching how they played, how they distributed the ball.
âIâve two super wingbacks beside me in David (McInerney) and Diarmuid (Ryan). Weâve learned so much off each other. Youâre always learning. When I went back into the forwards with Clonlara last year, I was bringing centre backs into positions that I hate. I love finding those percentages.â
In the pursuit of marginal gains, Conlon was always prepared to try anything. Early in his career, he enrolled in sports yoga courses. He changed his eating habits and diet. He hunted an edge wherever he could find it but some challenges had to be overcome by blunt force of will.
Just before the first Covid lockdown in the spring of 2020, Conlon ruptured the cruciate ligament in his knee. In the autumn of 2021 he injured the same knee training with Clonlara, which required more surgery. There had also been lingering issues with his back. Pain was constant. Sleep was an issue. Long running was almost impossible. A heavy hit in the 2022 Munster final gradually forced Conlonâs body into shutting down before that yearâs All-Ireland semi-final. The pain in his back was so severe that Conlon was struggling to breathe.
The following week, Conlon went back to Shane Flynn, who runs an injury rehabilitation clinic in Mullingar. âI went up to him for one or two sessions during Covid and then I left it until it all came tumbling down with that back injury,â Conlon says. âEver since then, we have built up a good friendship and itâs been a massive change in my career.
âI feel that it gives me massive benefit. Some people might not agree with his therapy but I find it great. He works with microcurrent therapy. Itâs nearly like electrocution. Youâd almost be jumping off the bed, but Shaneâs work also involves a lot [of] movement and rotational movement, a lot [of] band-work. My gym session would be a lot different to what it used to be. I use very little weights now. Itâs more how I move my body quicker to function properly.â
It has been career-changing. After struggling to run 100m in training, Conlon is now clocking up to 10k in games at his ease. âIâm probably the fittest I have ever been playing inter-county hurling,â he says. âIâm probably moving better than I was when I was 23, 24.â
Conlon is 35 now and in the deep autumn/early winter of an incredible career. When Clare won the 2013 All-Ireland with a young and gifted generation in the early summer of his career, the terms for the next decade looked firmly set; Clare appeared to have signed a long lease on the future.
That never happened. The subsequent years were defined by heartbreak and unfulfilled ambition. Conlon remembers walking out onto the Croke Park pitch nearly an hour after the 2022 semi-final, gazing into the emptiness of it all, fearfully wondering what was next. He had tears in his eyes. Would he be back? Would Clare be back in Croke Park?
He was. Clare were. Clare lost to Kilkenny again last July. They lost a third Munster final in a row to Limerick in June but Conlon always retained an essential optimism that the good days would return.
âWeâve been very positive, very consistent,â he says. âWeâve lost big games but you build up a resilience and unity in the group when you have to keep coming back. Maybe it was in the back of your mind if you were ever going to get over the semi-final but we were just delighted to beat Kilkenny. Now Iâm really looking forward to having one hell of a go in an All-Ireland final.â
When he looks back on his last final, Conlon knows he will enjoy the build-up much more now. Maturity grants that perspective. It sweetens the appreciation. Comfort comes from routine. Serenity and calmness will be drawn from walks with his wife Michelle along the river Shannon a short distance from their home in Clonlara. The match will come in its own time.
âUp until my late 20s, I nearly put too much pressure on myself to perform and play well,â Conlon says. âAround 2018, [I] did a lot of work on psychology, getting techniques to get myself more relaxed. My motto now is go out and enjoy it. You donât know when itâs going to end. It will be over soon enough but why not keep going while I still can? Iâm lucky enough to be still here taking on young lads. I love that challenge. Thereâs no better feeling than running out and hearing that Clare roar. This is where you want to be.â
It always was.
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I love to see a sleep analysis of players the night before an AI final. I cant imagine too many lads get more than 6 hours. A few of those fellas looked tired enough in the pre pitch walk around.
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Sound not great apparently according to one of the lads up there but he thought Johnny ended the interview by saying âfcuk Tippâ
Daly was saying heâd get a sleeping pill off Doc Quinn, Iâd say itâs the way to go if you were struggling with it
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Cork 1999: the inside story of a team that shaped the GAA
Twenty-five years on from an unlikely All-Ireland hurling title for Cork, Michael Foley talks to the veterans of that era about the parallels with the present team
Michael Foley
Sunday July 21 2024, 12.01am, The Sunday Times
When it was time to muster a committee to organise the suits and buses, drinks and grub for the Cork jubilee team being paraded at Croke Park today, picking a line-up demanded the diplomatic skills of a seasoned political strategist. Mark Landers, their captain, was there. Fergal Ryan was one of the senior players in 1999, Teddy Owens their master coach.
Seanie McGrath was chief rapscallion on a team of characters and cult heroes. Donal Ăg Cusack was young then, not yet firebrand leader, activist and icon for an age. Not yet Donal Ăg.
Some of them wondered how the others might be. In 25 years different members of the 1999 panel had suffered more skirmishes with each other than most groups, stuff that can leave deep, jagged scars.
Players had stood on either side of the picket lines during the Cork strikes. Of the 22-man panel that won the All-Ireland, 11 have since held high office in club or intercounty management. Some were beaten to coaching jobs by others. Some publicly criticised each otherâs work. The bloody-minded conviction and self-belief that wins an All-Ireland didnât always translate well to civilian life.
So, they wondered. About each other. About themselves. There was no need.
âThe sport among us has been magic,â says Cusack.
âJust brilliant crack,â says McGrath.
One day recently Cusack and McGrath were near the Mercy Hospital in Cork city on committee business when Cusack pointed to the side of the building.
âLook at that conduit,â he said. âItâs in great condition. You know who put that up?â
McGrath shrugged.
âMe.â
This was where Cusack had spent the summer of 1999, working as an apprentice electrician in the heart of the city, bombarded by the noise of a hurling summer in Cork and learning how deep this all went. Cusack was 22. Sean Ahern was his boss, founder of the company, leader of men and local character. After Cork won the All-Ireland Cusack brought the cup into work one day. Ahern gazed upon it like a child.
âThe pride he had,â says Cusack. âI started joining the dots that this thing is important here.â
He remembers the roars after a Cork score against Waterford in the Munster championship taking an extra second to echo downfield and slapping him in the face. There was a day before the Munster final against Clare in Willie John Ringâs house in Cloyne, Christyâs brother, hurley resting on the coffee table between them.
They talked about Anthony Daly matching Christyâs record of captaining three Munster title-winning teams. That sharpened his thinking. On All-Ireland final day Cusack stood in the pouring rain waiting for the game to start and noticed his hands were freezing.
âI remember thinking âthis is an All-Ireland final here boy, no place for cold handsâ. But sure all you had on was underpants, shorts, socks and a jersey.â
This was the time just before the intensive, granular preparation that has shaped training regimes ever since. But Cork were already pushing the soft margins. Cusack was devising puckout strategies with Fergal McCormack and Neil Ronan on the Cork half-forward line. Owens brought in sports scientists to monitor their training.
âDefinitely there was a transition happening between old and new,â says Cusack. âI remember thinking I need to hear and listen and take in as much as possible. The mood was changing in the GAA and sport. It was finding its feet for what was to come.â
Some of the names jump like live wires now: Donal Ăg and Seanie. Sean Ăg, Brian Corcoran, Ben OâConnor, Joe Deane, the Rock. But were those personalities formed then? Not yet. Too soon.
âSome became big figures within the game,â says McGrath. âThey were transformational characters. They transformed the association. They were super guys. They had that courage. But starting out it was just great crack. The fun was a big part of it for me. You wouldnât be scolded. You could have a laugh. You didnât have to be anything different from yourself.â
Pat Ryan was there too, Cork manager today, a sub in 1999 battling for his place as a highly skilled centrefielder. âHe was old style,â says McGrath. âVery clever. He was a brilliant striker of the ball. He had one of the most flawless, effortless strikes Iâve ever seen.
âIâll always remember Pat on nights out. Himself, Landers and Ronan Dwane would always end up in a corner having a mix of a quarrel and a debate about city hurling, Sarsfields [Ryanâs club], Imokilly [Landers and Dwaneâs divisional team]. He was very intuitive and tuned into Cork hurling.â
Hovering over them all was Jimmy Barry-Murphy as manager, boyhood hero and Cork hurlingâs infallible Dalai Lama. âI remember how calm Jimmy was around the group,â says Ryan. âHow much confidence he gave to the lads. [An All-Ireland final] was just another day so enjoy it because these are days to be savoured.
âYou had fantastic leaders like Mark Landers. Obviously Donal Ăg and Brian Corcoran. Brian was fantastic in the lead-up to that [final]. An absolute super player that gave everybody great confidence going into it. Weâve some of those players as well.
âWhat we would value here all the time is the panel. That would be my own experience. Sometimes I was playing, sometimes I wasnât. But I always felt I was making a contribution and always felt part of the group. That was another thing that Jimmy was fantastic on: he always made people feel part of it. Thatâs something we try to do.â
More parallels between then and now are easily drawn. Like Barry-Murphy in the Nineties, Ryan guided a generation of gifted underage players to Munster and All-Ireland titles. Both also reached a point as senior managers where everything was on the line: their team, their future. Everything.
The 1999 championship became a series of summits on Corkâs health, just like now. Ryan made six changes this year after Cork lost to Waterford in the Munster championship. In 1999 Barry-Murphy made six changes before playing Waterford in Munster after a couple of disastrous challenge matches against Tipperary. They went so badly one was blown up 15 minutes early, and Barry-Murphy met with four senior players to check if they thought he was the problem.
He wasnât. At a meeting before Cork played Waterford in 1999, Mark Landers held an All-Ireland medal in front of the players and looked towards Barry-Murphy and his selectors Johnny Crowley and Tom Cashman, holders of 18 All-Irelands between them. âThey canât win it for us,â he said. âWe have to win it for ourselves.â
On the day of the 1999 Munster final against Clare, Landers pressed play on a video clip of Joe Deane and McGrath getting horsed around by Ollie Baker and Anthony Daly in 1998. âThat will not happen today,â Landers said.
âWhen he spoke you could hear a pin drop,â says McGrath. âThe bus was totally silent to Thurles.â
Before the All-Ireland final against Kilkenny, Landers showed the players a photograph of Barry-Murphy shaking hands with Kilkenny manager Brian Cody as captains before the 1982 All-Ireland final when Kilkenny stifled Barry-Murphy and Cork lost. They wanted a different picture this time.
âIf Landers made it clear how much Jimmy meant to us,â said Brian Corcoran in his autobiography, âJimmy then made it clear how much we meant to him.â
That afternoon Barry-Murphy presented each player with their jersey for the final. Afterwards, when the All-Ireland was won, he told them it was the greatest moment of his sporting life. âFor a guy who achieved so much this was incredible,â says McGrath âWe idolised him. To say that to a group of young fellasâŚâ
Words failed everybody.
Out on the field at the end of the 1999 final Crowley and Cashman reminded wing-back Wayne Sherlock to soak up every last moment. Sherlock had never been inside the gates of Croke Park before that summer. He returns this afternoon among Ryanâs selectors alongside Brendan Coleman, sub keeper in 1999, curating a team fuelled by the same energy.
âThe public have got behind this team like they did for the â99 team,â says Sherlock. âWe were young. Maybe at the start of the year we werenât given a chance. Then the publicâs interest started building and they started believing in us.
âPlayers actually do feed off that. These players have taken a few knocks and are out there to prove they can compete with the best.â
Different times. Same dream.
A few minutes listening to a Joe Rogan podcast would have them out like a light.
Cork primed to bring ďŹre again after ferocious win over Limerick
Semi-final triumph settled any remaining doubts over in-form Corkâs capacity to win an All-Ireland Championship
Michael Foley
Sunday July 21 2024, 12.01am, The Sunday Times
To start getting a handle on the spellbinding madness promised by today, draw a line back to the last time Clare met Cork in a match played on a genuine tightrope. It was a qualifier in Limerick on a damp and sunny day in 2021 that finished up with Tony Kelly charging down the gullet of the Cork defence, seeking the goal to win the match.
Cork were down to 13 players and clinging to the remnants of a good lead, but with Kelly careering through at full tilt, the Cork crowd were prepared for defeat. He took his shot. Patrick Collins had advanced from goal like he did two weeks ago against Limerick and flung himself at the ball like a marine smothering a live grenade. The whistle went. Cork had somehow survived. For a moment the huge Clare crowd went silent.
Then, as their team left the field, they rose to their feet cheering. For months that year, too much talk of Clare had focused on the poverty of their training conditions and the battles to achieve the most basic standards of player welfare, all their frustrations captured in a story from the previous autumn of a padlock being broken on a gate to access Cusack Park so the players could train. Corkâs own historical memory would know how that kind of adversity could bind a team together.
Disappearing in the no manâs land of the qualifiers having made the All-Ireland quarter-finals in 2020 looked like a step back for Clare, but no one felt that. Getting leathered in the final by Limerick that year gave Cork a precise measure of the distance they still needed to travel to get remotely near winning an All-Ireland. Losing the next two All-Ireland semi-finals to Kilkenny offered Clare the same bespoke service.
Did they bridge the gaps? Clare, for sure. Cork? No one could say they had until a fortnight ago. When they met in Munster this year, Clare won a harum-scarum game and riddled Corkâs defence in a manner that revived the same questions about Corkâs workrate and defensive play that have tortured them for years. Again, Corkâs answers had been insufficient.
That failure was what made Corkâs first statement performance of the year a couple of weeks later against Limerick such a stunning achievement. When they summoned the ferocity to defeat Limerick again in their All-Ireland semi-final, it seemed to settle any remaining doubts over Corkâs capacity to bring that fire every day and win an All-Ireland.
Clare might think differently. Corkâs resurgence has been based on the smart engineering of space: keeping three forwards up high, attacking their opponents in the air and lightning quick work at the breakdown. Clare will like their chances of clogging up that space.
But they will also need a lot to go better than it has over the past month. If their second half against Kilkenny swept away doubts about their ability to win the clutch matches that have been beyond them for the past three years, their first half was so awful it nearly capsized the whole project.
Winning today will demand more, from everyone. Tony Kellyâs three points and general influence were immense as Clare surfed the wave against Kilkenny in the last 20 minutes. Before that he had scarcely been visible.
They need David McInerney dictating play along with Kelly and Shane OâDonnell maintaining his superlative form, discovering again the pockets of space in the Cork defence he always seems to find. They need platoons of workers swamping Corkâs runners and slowing their play at the breakdown. Another huge game from Cathal Malone for all that to work.
David Fitzgeraldâs ability demands he delivers better than he has managed all year. Clare wonât survive either if Eibhear Quilligan is obliged again to make the four saves he did against Kilkenny.
Everything spectacular about Cork since April demands Clareâs attention, but it wonât spook them. Since losing to Cork in 2021, Clare have won their past three championship games, historically their best run against Cork since the mid-Nineties and their second-best streak of all time.
But Clare havenât faced this version of Cork either. If Clare do limit Darragh Fitzgibbonâs brilliance around the middle, Ciaran Joyce is the type of gifted bolter whose influence could decide the final. Alan Connolly and Brian Hayes have been sensational in attack; Patrick Horgan is scoring more goals and contributing more from open play than heâs managed for a few years.
Everywhere you look Cork are rippling with form. The question is what magic they have left to conjure, and whether their last stores of energy have withstood the roaring hype and dazzling colour that has engulfed the place in the past fortnight. Nineteen years without an All-Ireland is the longest wait for an All-Ireland Cork has ever known. Itâs barely two months since that seemed certain to lurch into another year, at least.
But this group have travelled a long way in no time, far enough to recall an old line from Kevin Cashman, one of hurlingâs greatest laureates, who passed away a few days ago.
âWho ever heard of Cork playing to full capacity on their first championship outing?â he wrote once.
Expect something close to their best on the last. Cork, by a puck of a ball.
RTE doesnât even show the Jubillee team being presented.
Be as well off to scrap the whole concept altogether at this stage if theyâre going to disrespect it so much.
Especially considering Kilkenny have the next 15 Jubilee teams in a row.
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Clare players came out for a look at the Cork 99 team.
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Looking at that Cork jubilee team, the one thing that really stands out is the incredible amount of cunts on it.
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