Going into an All-Ireland final as underdogs isn’t exactly a new experience for Kieran Kingston.

Back in 1986, he was a 21-year-old member of the Cork panel, named as a sub for the final against Galway, but with some inside information that he would see game-time: “Dr Con [Murphy] told me about four days beforehand I’d be coming in if I didn’t start!” he laughs.

“We were very relaxed going into that game, Cork were total underdogs again and Galway were more or less collecting the trophy.

“Cork had had a bad year, hammered by Kilkenny in the league final, and Galway had hammered Kilkenny in the All-Ireland semi-final, so we were quite relaxed, had nothing to lose and we played with freedom.

“We won but that was then, this is now. It’s a totally different world.”

Different in many ways, but with the similarity of Cork being outsiders against a Limerick team seeking a third title in four years.

“We’re not delusional,” Kingston says, “we know we’re total underdogs and they’re raging favourites, and rightly so.

“They’re the best team since the great Kilkenny team, they’re being compared to them and were unlucky not to win three titles in a row.

“We know we’re underdogs but saying that, it’s an All-Ireland final, only two teams can win it and we’re one of them. 

“We have good momentum, we’ve won three knock-out games in a row and I think they’re good character-builders, particularly the semi-final, where our record against Kilkenny was poor. We had lost six of the last seven [semi-finals] so that was great for the group, for their evolution and development.”

It’s also an evolution and development for Kingston, who led Cork to a semi-final in 2017 in his first stint in charge, but he doesn’t feel he deserves the bulk of the praise for that.

“I’ve always said that managers get too much credit when they win and too much blame when they lose,” he says.

“To me you can bring in the best managers of all time – Mick O’Dwyer, Jim Gavin, Jim McGuinness, Mickey Harte – if they don’t have the players they won’t win. Simple as.

“We’ve seen that over the years, a manager has to have the players. My job as manager - and our job in the backroom - is to facilitate those players to perform on the pitch, to be as organised as we can.

“But you can make all the decisions you want, if you don’t have players who are willing to leave it all out there for the jersey, to show a real honesty of effort, who have the basics of skill and speed - which they should have anyway - then it comes down to the other marginal things like character, which winning teams always have in abundance. If you don’t have that in the group, it doesn't matter how good or bad a manager you are.”