Cork SFC final: Nemo Rangers weather late Finbarr’s storm to end three years of heartbreak

In the end, relief. No matter how much Nemo Rangers have won over the last 50 years, the gap between this title and their last will have felt like a hellish eternity. They had lost each of the last three county finals and no club in Cork had lost four in a row since the 1930s. Nemo didn’t make their reputation on that kind of history.

“It’s been a long four years,” said their captain Stephen Cronin in the opening line of his victory speech, and he repeated the same words in the closing line, as if they were stuck in his throat and he needed to spit them out.