REDEMPTION DAY FOR CORK

Is this payback time for Rebels and what lessons have been learned from the All-Ireland meltdown?

- BY GARRY DOYLE

IF this were boxing, and if Don King were the promoter, Saturday night's League clash between Cork and Tipperary would be sold with one line in flashing neon: PAYBACK TIME.

It fits.

Last July, Cork had Tipperary wobbling.

Six points up at halftime of an All-Ireland final, playing the sharper hurling, imposing themselves physically and mentally.

Then it collapsed. Two second-half points. A 15-point defeat. A humiliation by the end.

The fallout was messy.

Rumours of a halftime bust-up, swiftly denied.

The departure of manager Pat Ryan.

The retirement of Patrick Horgan, an era closing with a thud rather than a flourish. For Cork, it felt familiar - another final lost, another scar added.

But this is sport, not mourning. Cork are back.

New year. New players. New manager and perhaps, finally, a new response.

With 25,000 tickets already sold, the appetite for this rivalry is undimmed. Yet February never hands out verdicts. It merely offers clues. The real answers wait for June and July.

Still, after two League games and two wins, one thing is clear: Cork have spent the winter studying the wreckage of last July rather than pretending it never happened.

Here is what they must do if payback is to mean anything at all.

HAVE A PLAN B

Cork's great failing in last year's final was not that Plan A failed. It was that when it failed, they tried it again. And again.

The long ball had served them well for two years but Brian Hayes was strangled by Ronan Maher. Cork scored just two points in the second half.