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Will still be August. Start in June and championship be over in August. No chance of that.

Cork gaa is fucked.
A couple of players dropped from the hurling squad immediately taken in to the football squad. A joke of a county with no pride.

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Welcome to one month ago mate.

Teams would have been back training late Jan anyway its hardly that mad. Always league games in Mar and champ maybe late April or early May with a massive break in middle of it…

I think it’s absolutely ludicrous. To start hard training in January for a competition that doesn’t start until August is just peak GAA, absolute nonsense. In no other sport in the world do they have the same ridiculous pre seasons that we do, and yet we’re amateur.

Honestly, if I was the coach of a senior club team I would just give them a gym programme until early March. Then you’ll have more than enough preparation for August without the risk of player fatigue.

Despite the changing calendars and the GAA giving greater attention to clubs, players are still left neglected. They hate the long preseason, both IC and club, and something needs to change.

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I agree… But my point was were they not doing this anyway starting training that early. Sure for years there has been two pre seasons required for a championship game in April maybe and nothing again until August or Sept

Teams should not be back till March in my opinion with championship starting in August.

The whole point of the split season was to prevent that; it was the main thing people gave out about the April club month.

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Cork hurlers must call the shots next time after All-Ireland final dressing down

After a departure from their usual routine, Cork looked spooked in the All-Ireland SHC final

Almost two hours after the final whistle had gone in August’s All-Ireland SHC final, members of the Cork and Limerick logistics and kit teams exchanged pleasantries in the Hogan Stand tunnel.

Bidding each other congratulations, commiserations, and farewells, if there was any bad blood over what happened earlier in the day, it wasn’t on display.

As the name of the county as Gaeilge comes before Limerick in the alphabet, Cork had been assigned the dressing room on the Hill 16 side. However, Limerick ended up in the “lucky” dressing room apparently due to a mix-up with the names on the front of the doors to each room.

Limerick’s group were first to the stadium and by the time the error was realised, they had already set up shop in the dressing room they occupied the previous December when they beat Waterford. Perhaps they should have highlighted to the organisers to the mistake before they hung the jerseys and unfolded the physio tables but then when do champions turn down a chance to plant a flag?

In the previous 15 years, seven All-Ireland winners had emerged from that area — the exceptions being Tipperary in 2010, ‘16, and ‘19, and Limerick in ‘18. It was the dressing room Cork had the last time they won an All-Ireland SHC final. In football, Tyrone became the first All-Ireland senior winning team to use the Davin Stand side dressing room since Cork in 2010.

Such an inconvenience for Cork wouldn’t be considered one if they weren’t beaten by 16 points and conceded over 40. If it couldn’t be so easily interpreted that they had already lost a battle before Fergal Horgan had even thrown in the ball. With just Seamus Harnedy and Patrick Horgan having previously experienced an All-Ireland final, nerves were going to play a major part of Cork’s day.

If the dressing room confusion was one thing, not sticking with their routine of returning to it after their pre-match was another. Throughout the summer, Cork had warmed up in white tops before going back in to change into their jerseys a la rugby and soccer teams.

The routine almost caught them out in the second round qualifier win over Clare in Limerick when they missed the start of ‘Amhrán na bhFiann’ and stood for the remainder of it outside the entrance to the City End dressing room. “Our clocks must be wrong because we thought we were three minutes early, and that’s being honest,” laughed manager Kieran Kingston at the time. “We were trying to keep out of the sun for a while and when we were coming out, it was being played.”

Against Dublin in Thurles and again facing Kilkenny in the All-Ireland semi-final in Croke Park, they arrived early onto the field so that they could go back in and be out in time just before throw-in. The Thursday prior to the final, this newspaper contacted Croke Park to see if they could enter the field a second time as the pre-game event plan with the likes of the parade and President Michael D Higgins’s arrival. Confirmation was provided that they could and yet they didn’t take up the offer.

Instead, they arrived out onto the field in their jerseys before 3pm, earlier than their scheduled entry time. Meanwhile, Limerick, as they have been doing for several games especially after half-time, were late emerging from the Hogan Stand tunnel, over seven minutes after Cork, and didn’t begin warming up until 25 minutes before throw-in.

The spooked behaviour of some of the Cork players in the parade was picked up by Tipperary’s two-time All-Ireland winning Liam Sheedy, who was known to rehearse the presidential handshakes and parades with his teams in Semple Stadium prior to his teams’ final appearances.

The increased noise levels from the 40,000 crowd, some of which seemed to be artificially amplified, was nothing the vast majority of the 15 had ever experienced. “I don’t think Cork dealt well with the day overall,” Sheedy told the Irish Examiner hurling podcast. “They were out very early. The whole occasion… even watching them in the parade, I never thought they were ready.

I look at Caroline (Currid) and the impact with Limerick she had in ’18 in their first final. I thought they dealt with the occasion very well. But I don’t think Cork did. I think they’ll learn a lot from it but I think we all thought they would bring a lot more to the pitch.”

Speaking afterwards, Kingston did acknowledge there may have been stagefright. “I know there was a bit going on behind the scenes with an All-Ireland final and it’s different for lads that haven’t been here before, but certainly I wouldn’t be using that as an excuse, absolutely not.”

The return of the highly-respected Gary Keegan to the set-up as performance coach will almost certainly steel Cork should they find themselves in the final again this coming season. But the hard lesson has already been taught.

Shane Kingston’s quick response to Gearóid Hegarty’s second-minute goal aside, the difference in confidence and attitude between All-Ireland SHC finalists in August’s first half was as stark as it was in 2007 when Kilkenny swatted aside a youthful Limerick with just one starting player with final experience, a team who like Cork had ridden into the game on a wave of hype.

Terms were given to Limerick back then but it’s they who dictate them now. If the red tide is to break the 17-year wait for the Liam MacCarthy Cup, Cork have to start calling the shots.

The Limerick crowd would sicken your shit so they would

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Who wrote that?

John Fogarty

He’s seething

Silly enough article

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It is the silly season

The Limerick roar won the day. :speaking_head:

That is an utterly comical article .

Stole their dressing room :laughing:

Just shows you how good that Kilkenny team in 07 actually were, they withstood the greatest Limerick roar ever. Cork wilted after half a roar.

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Sad state of affairs when it takes a newspaper article to essentially tell a group of hurlers to grow a pair of balls

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