Captain Ian Maguire believes that Cork have turned a corner as they bid to upset Kerry in the Munster final.
Although they suffered relegation to Division Three this spring, Cork appeared to be finding their feet towards the end of the campaign, winning two of their last three games against Tipperary and Armagh before whipping Limerick in the Munster semi-final.
And having accumulated a number of wins in challenge games on top of that, it certainly doesn’t do their confidence any harm.
“Oh, one thousand percent,” said Maguire. “You can only create confidence by winning. Moral victories is a load of pipe in my own opinion.
“Since that Tipperary League game this group of players have really turned a corner.
“Obviously we were playing defensive football at the start of the year but that aside, as players we were playing absolutely rubbish and we just had to own up to it and we really turned the corner that day up in Thurles and we’ve moved on ever since.
“I suppose we had a bad 15 minutes against Donegal but since then we’ve been playing some super football as a group of players.
“It hasn’t been two or three individuals, it’s been 26/27 fellas absolutely hopping every time we take the field, whether it’s a training game, a challenge game or Championship.”
But having lost by 17 points to Kerry in last year’s Munster final, it would take a mammoth performance to turn the tables on them in tomorrow evening’s renewal at Pairc Ui Chaoimh.
Maguire added: “I suppose last year was incredibly disappointing as a player like. We got our asses handed to us.
“They beat us out the gate and then we followed up and Tyrone beat us out the gate. But there’s nothing we can do about the past, that happens.
“You just need to right the wrongs and that’s our approach going into the final. It’s a huge opportunity, we’re looking forward to it.
“More importantly, it’s a big game for Cork football now and we are Cork footballers and we’re really looking forward to a big game and performing.
“We’re not looking at last year, we’re just thinking about performing on the big day because whatever about the training and whatever about Ronan [McCarthy] and tactics, when we cross the white line we are the ones that have to do it.
“We have to perform on the big day and we’re really looking forward to the challenge.”
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