'It's up to all of us to try catch Limerick' - Shane Kingston

Stopping the runaway train that is the Limerick senior hurlers may not be a one-man, one-team or even one-county job. It's up to everyone to close the gap on the most dominant force in the game, reckons Cork forward Shane Kingston.

Fresh off a hat-trick off All-Irelands which means they have bagged four of the last five titles, John Kiely's rampant Treaty side have a stranglehold on the small-ball game that they seem to have no interest in relinquishing anytime soon. Kingston and his Rebel team-mates know that waiting for Limerick to come back to the pack would be a hopeless endevour.

"Limerick are extremely dominant. Any team that wins four our of five All-Irelands is extremely dominant, similar to Dublin footballers a couple of years back," Kingston said. "But that's the challenge to every other team, not just Cork, to put in that extra graft and get up to that level.

"It's hard to pinpoint it really, it's probably just an element of everything. You have to get that bit slicker with the hurling, that bit stronger, fitter and hopefully when you combine it all it might just get you over the line on the day.

"Limerick have been so dominant recently, but it's just up to us to train that bit harder over the next couple of months and hopefully get the chance to play Limerick again on a big stage and hopefully come out with an All-Ireland medal at the end of the day."

Cork will have a new man in the hot seat after Pat Ryan took over the reins from Kingston's father, Kieran, who has been in and around the Rebel camp for a decade.

"My old man was involved with Cork for eight out of the last 10 years, so obviously it's a change for everyone not just me," Kingston stated. "He left in 2017 and I think he felt he had something left to