New Páirc finally becoming a fortress for Cork hurlers after slow start

Irish Daily Mirror

26-04-2025

It's a year ago this weekend that Clare went to SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh and scored a victory that was more comfortable than the two-point margin suggested.
At that stage, the Cork hurlers had lost as many Championship games as they had won at the ground since its reopening in 2017. They had just a 56% win rate there in the League.
From the outset, there was a struggle to make it feel like home. The pitch was a constant issue. A League double header there in 2018 proved a disastrous call, with the surface smothered in sand and cutting up badly.
After a similar episode for the hurlers' League game against Wexford the following year, subsequent home games were moved to Páirc Uí Rinn.
The financial millstone that the new ground brought also had implications for Cork's flagship teams. The hurlers' home game with Clare in the 2022 Munster Championship was played in Thurles because revenue from Ed Sheeran gigs was deemed more important. They lost.
Granted, there were good spells as Cork won all six League games there across 2022 and '23, but the only home Championship outing that they had in between was a heavy defeat to Limerick.
When Limerick returned to the ground last year, however, something clicked. It was the first time that it had hosted a sellout for the Cork hurlers. They were trailing and on the way out of the Championship until a late rally swung a pulsating game in their favour, sparking a pitch invasion. The euphoria helped to carry Cork all the way to the All-Ireland final and though they lost narrowly, the crowds have stayed with them.
Each home League game this year broke 20,000. The final win over Tipperary was another sellout.
'That was the catalyst, in a way,' says former Cork manager John Meyler of that Limerick game last May. 'Cork people were so delighted last year in Cork beating Limerick and getting to the All-Ireland final. It's the culture, it's the support for the team to do well and that's what the Cork people want.
'There's a young generation there now, like the amount of young people that were at the Tipperary game a couple of weeks ago was massive.
'The amount of young Cork people in jerseys in Ennis on Sunday was massive as well so there's a huge push for Cork to win an All-Ireland and the young people want them to do that and there's colour and there's razzmatazz.'
Of course, a confluence of factors that feeds into it, not least the fact that Cork have their most talented batch of players in at least 20 years, but while opposition carried no great fear about coming to play in the shiny new stadium and, indeed, may have got a bounce from that, it now has the feel of a fortress for Cork.
'It was about bedding in the pitch and bedding in the atmosphere,' says Meyler, who was the first man to manage the Cork hurlers at the venue. 'The Cork players were getting used to the dressing rooms, getting used to the tunnel, getting used to the bus coming down Monaghan Road, all of that. It's much the same as going to Croke Park in a way. Now Cork are used to that.
'Páirc Ui Chaoimh is in pristine condition for this time of the year. It absolutely suits the Cork speed of hurling and I think that's a huge benefit to Cork.'
In contrast, Cork quickly made the most of the home comforts with the previous iteration of Páirc Uí Chaoimh, which opened in 1976. It was 20 years before they lost a home Championship game, to Limerick, who won there again in 2001.
Come their first round tie in 2008, Tipperary hadn't beaten Cork on Leeside since 1923, albeit there had been just nine meetings there in the meantime. But Liam Sheedy used it for all it was worth.
'It was massive,' says Tipp's Darragh Egan, who played that day. 'It was 85 years, 1923 to 2008, and it was such a big focus for us.
'It was constantly inflicted on us over the few weeks of preparation and the old stadium down there, it did allow for that kind of fortress mentality.
'Liam had everything planned for that 85 years; we needed to go as a Tipp team and go down and win it and all that like, it was, it was really, really instilled.'
Tipp won and have now only lost once down there in the Championship in five meetings, in the old ground in 2010, after which they recovered to win the All-Ireland.
Egan was part of the Sheedy's management team when they opened the 2019 Championship campaign at the new ground with another win.
'We do like a cause going down there. Dublin turned us over on the 16th of March in the League and I remember I was right beside Liam. There was lads coming in out of the stand and they were having a go at Liam and how we were terrible and this was a joke and this and that and the other but like we literally had nothing else in our head only the 12th of May.'
Egan says that Cork are 'making it a smaller stadium than it is' at the moment, but reckons that Liam Cahill will have something to try and counter that, while the expectation is that tomorrow's game will play out differently to the League final.
'He'll have some sort of ammunition this week for the players, particularly after having a positive result last weekend.
'And again, what have Tipp getting ready for the last three or four months? It has been all about Championship. Their best performance of the year to date has been the first round of the Championship.'
CORK HURLERS' RECORD AT NEW PÁIRC UÍ CHAOIMH (2018-25)
Played 9, won 4, drawn 2, lost 3.
Win %: 44
Played 20, won 13, drawn 1, lost 6.
Win %: 65
Total
Played 29, won 17, drawn 3, lost 9.
Win %: 57
Last 12 months
Played 5, won 4, drawn 1, lost 0.
Win %: 80