AFTER ALL WE'VE BEEN THROUGH

Cork band The Frank and Walters are ready for a Páirc Uí Chaoimh party with Rebels on rise again

- Derek FOLEY

THE Frank and Walters are ready for another epic at Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Just getting there will be epic enough!

The Cork band are playing in Berlin tonight before a trains, boats and planes dash Leeside to perform before the Rebels' Munster SHC clash with Tipperary tomorrow.

"We have never played at a match there before, it is definitely a first for us," said drummer Ashley Keating.

"And for it to be Cork-Tipp as well! My dad and my uncle and my grandad have all been talking about those Cork-Tipp games from every era, there is such a different vibe around those games.

"I hardly have the vocabulary to explain it but I just know that walking into a Cork-Tipp is different to any other game, different to any other in any sport.

"And I'm lucky enough, I have already managed to get the Champions League final in Moscow, Manchester United and Chelsea in 2008 and some other big sporting occasions.

"We have some stadiums with the band, the Olympiastadion in Munich where the 1974 World Cup final was, did Thurles' Féile, half-time at Turner's Cross in a Cork City game...

"But this Cork-Tipp is nothing like that, it is a completely different feeling, totally unique to get this one, it's just a dream come true."

Hurling is in the Bishopstown blood.

"Sport was huge in my family, my father followed Cork hurling and football, Cork Hibs and Cork Celtic and we went to all kinds of games back then.

"I was at school and going up to Croke Park the three-in-row hurling titles in the 1970s, remember going up to Croke Park and all through the 1980s."

And it's a measure of the excitement around this current Cork crop that those of who have seen some of the greats winning trophies have belief in this side.