Clare's mental steel should have edge over Cork's new blood in April knockout hurling

Hard to believe that the words knockout and April would ever be in the same sentence when it comes to championship hurling but that is more or less what's at stake in Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Sunday when Cork welcome Clare to town.

Both are coming in off the back of a close loss. Clare capitulated, Cork never got going, so who will have the most mental baggage from their opening round defeats?

There are cases to be made for both but for me it’s The Banner who carry the most hurt going into this game. They held all the cards after 52 minutes against Limerick: up by nine points, getting Tony Kelly on the field, but from then until the end they were outscored 3-06 to 0-3, a frightening stat in a club game, let alone in a battle of the top two inter-county teams in the country and Clare at home.

I think getting over that is tougher than getting over a poor performance, which Cork had last weekend. But credit to Waterford, they brought fight and intensity to that game and hurled in a way we had not seen from them in some time. They deserved their victory and we all saw what it meant to them at the final whistle, not least to their manager.

But back to Clare and Cork. What are the issues here and how can they fix them in such a quick turn- around? For Clare, the right men are on the field for them and I’m sure Tony Kelly will be in from the off so the issue here is the mental side of play. Can they park the hurt from last week and focus on the fact that this is still very much in their hands? It could be taken out of their hands by 4pm Sunday and then that league title becomes less and less important to them and their fans.

"Sometimes in life, the only thing people like to see changed is a baby's nappy but for me and many more Cork fans