Sean O'Shea insists that the Kerry-Cork rivalry hasn’t been diminished by its recent one-sidedness.
And as a Kerry footballer who’s been educated at University College Cork for the past three years, he’s well placed to call it.
O’Shea said: “It’s still a massive rivalry between Kerry and Cork. Now it’s quite a healthy rivalry, there’s good craic there too, so I suppose on the field the next day the friendship will be gone for that hour and 20 minutes or whatever.
“Being down there, the quality of these players, you know what they can bring so it’s the same for them with us. In fact being familiar with each other works both ways really.”
Among his UCC teammates are Cork lads Mark White, Kevin Flahive, Liam O’Donovan, Cian Kiely and Nathan Walsh while Rebel legend Billy Morgan manages the Sigerson Cup team.
“He epitomises everything about Cork football and the respect that everyone from not only Cork but around Munster and Ireland has for Billy shows the stature of the man. Working under him for the last two years has been very beneficial.”
UCC won the Sigerson this year in the midst of a hectic League campaign for O’Shea though he insisted: “I actually found it very enjoyable to be honest. You’re going from game to game.
"When you’re training for five or six weeks before a game fellas would be giving out too, so it was great to be doing from game to game and there was great momentum there and just a very enjoyable part of the year.”
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