Better known as a midfielder, the 2013 All-Ireland finalist with Cork was reduced to the role of impact sub last year, before being handed a new deployment by John Meyler for 2018.

Save for a spell at midfield in the second-half of the Munster final against Clare, Kearney largely featured as a wing-forward.

It’s a move of mere metres in positional terms, though a switch that required a giant leap in mindset and application.

“I’m not the stereotypical wing-forward,” said Kearney, who stands 5’ 9” tall. “Aerially, I don’t have what you’d consider ball-winning ability from puck-outs, but John put me to wing-forward this year and I just tried to do my own thing with it, tried to suit the team whatever way I could and it worked.

Where I get the benefit is that the forwards inside are being marked so tightly; Patrick, Conor, Alan, whoever it is inside, so some of the half-backs try to drop back to protect them and I can ask a better question then of the half-backs.

“Sometimes, I feel that teams are happy to leave me off and to protect inside and then that suits me grand.

“I’m thinking, I’ll try to punish you then for, not a lack of respect of my ability, but if you’re not going to mark me then I’ll try to hurt you. I thought that worked well for us this year.”

As if to underline the level of specialisation and attrition in the wing-forward role, Kearney found his tank completely empty with 10 minutes to go in the All-Ireland semi-final against Limerick.

“It was fatigue and after 60 minutes my legs were gone,” he said. “You aim to run yourself into the ground, I suppose. I did it, probably for the first time in a game. I would consider myself fit enough, but my calves just cramped.

“At 60 [minutes], there was no more in me and, when it came to extra-time, the lads just said to me: ‘Are you able to go again?’ It’s very hard to say no when they’re looking for you. I went to try and go again, probably being at 60 or 70% and the tiredness kind of showed in extra-time with Limerick getting a draw and closing it out.

“We’d a lot of tired bodies and, from the first-half of extra-time, it just felt like the tide was turning in their favour and the sucker punch goal they got came in the second-half of extra-time and it was game over then.”

Former Cork full-back Diarmuid O’Sullivan was critical of the entire episode that Kearney has just outlined.

O’Sullivan questioned why players like Kearney and Seamus Harnedy, who were clearly struggling, were utilised in extra-time.

Cork’s lack of impact from the bench has caught up to them,” claimed O’Sullivan at the time. “It’s something the management should have addressed and said: ‘Look, how do we make this strong?’

O’Sullivan concluded that keeping Harnedy on the pitch was “criminal” and some substitutions were bewildering.

However, Kearney said: “Tim O’Mahony came on and, I would say as a tactical substitution, he was a good fella to bring on. He can win his own ball, is well able to hurl and Tim subsequently got man-of-the-match against Wexford in the U21 championship.”

“It probably didn’t go all Tim’s way that day against Limerick, but that doesn’t mean it was the right or wrong substitution. I just think that to pinpoint it to the wrong substitutes that were made, or that there was a lack of depth, it’s kind of an easy statement to make. If we had closed it out, it would have been: ‘Oh, they were great moves.’ It’s just a combination of different elements and things within the team itself, that we maybe took our foot off the gas in the last 10 minutes and just drew Limerick onto us.”