Donal Og Cusack admits trying to put a stop to Kilkenny’s five-in-a-row bid is the biggest hurdle imaginable for his side.
The Cork goalkeeper and his Rebels team-mates were nine-point winners over Antrim in last Sunday’s All-Ireland SHC quarter-final, but the dubious prize earned from that success was a semi-final pairing with the Cats, who have not lost in the Championship since the semi-final to Galway five long years ago.
They have beaten Cork in a final (2006) and a semi-final (2008) in that time and the Rebels now have just once chance left to be the ones that stop Brian Cody’s kings of the game from holding onto Liam McCarthy for a fifth successive year.
With the Cats barely stretched at all thus far in wins over Dublin and Galway, and an ageing Cork side having played five times, most bookmakers see only one winner on Sunday week. But Cusack says Cork cannot afford to think like that.
"People can be accused of talking up the opposition, but the facts speak for themselves,” the Cloyne man was quoted by the Irish Examiner as saying at Tuesday’s launch of the Guinness' Pace Yourself campaign.
“Kilkenny are going for five-in-a-row, one of the greatest teams ever to play the game and it's a massive challenge, but as a sports person and a GAA player, where else would you want to be on Sunday week?
"You'd probably have to think about previous meetings and think about those situations. For us it's the semi-final of the third competition in the game, the main competition, and we want to win it.
"We don't want to go through another season without silverware, but all we can do is focus on Sunday week. It's a cliche to talk up the opposition, but the reality is they'll be raging hot favourites. We're under no illusion about the challenge that awaits us.
"You have to give Kilkenny credit - I think they have taken the game to a new level. They have become comfortable at playing the game of hurling at such an intensity that other teams aren't able to match.
"We have seen in games against Kilkenny that teams are able to live with them for 20, 25 minutes because there's a certain amount of adrenaline but they aren't able to go toe-to-toe with them for 70 minutes. They have become very comfortable playing the game of hurling at that intensity."