Ill-informed Cork fans with bravado telling themselves and anyone who'll listen that we'll beat this team or that by a number of points is one thing - they're not doing it to build Cork up so that they can delight in tearing Cork down subsequently, and write copious copy on it .
The players and the management should know better at this stage though. With very very few exceptions the media delight in Cork hubris far more than that of any other county. Anthony Daly (chtpew) is a well known proponent of bigging Cork up so that he can rip the ever-living piss out of predictions (mainly predictions he made himself) of Cork winning this or that match, only to fail. But there are many more in the media who are aboard the "Let's take the piss out of Cork and their notions" train.
Our players and management should not get sucked into that BS. They should be giving curt, non-expansive, responses to interviewers. In recent years Cork players and/or management have practically written the story themselves when given free reign by these cute journalists. I think it would serve Cork GAA a whole lot better if our players and management were monosyllabic, or at the very least far less effusive, in their response to leading questions. The media might soon get the message that Cork are sick and tired of being the butt of their interviews.
Cork hurling support is huge, and if many in the media had its way, the articles would all be pandering to that large support which would mean greater takeup than with other, less supported, counties, while the trophies are won elsewhere.
"Neutrals" in 31 counties were delighted Mayo brought their long famine to an end. Nobody outside the county is hoping Cork win the Liam McCarthy any time soon and I think it's time Cork people realised this and the effect that various interviews and billy-big-balls comments (not by actual fans, that happens in all counties) can have on the general psyche. The general media have a pretty good idea of what they're doing and the affect it is having.
