Seamus Harnedy mightn’t have been mentioned but most if not everybody deduced it was the current Cork captain Ó hAilpín was referring to.

The St Ita’s man might have been the collateral damage in a dig at Jimmy Barry-Murphy’s decision that season to drop his Na Piarsaigh club-mate but it caused a lot of commotion.

So much that Dónal Óg Cusack came to the defence of Ó hAilpín: “Anyone who knows the man would know that this was a little joke and not a little bitterness.”

Looking back, Harnedy can smile about it. At the time, Ó hAilpín’s comment was reiterated to him several times.

“I got that a lot but I was since talking to him and he’s always clarified that it wasn’t aimed directly at me so, look, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

“He’s a Cork legend, a Cork hero and always someone I looked up to. Even when I was training with him that year, his professionalism, you really learn from characters like him and I never took that personally.

“I’d always listen to anything he had to say anyway. I just really looked up to him as a character and even on the training field I was so lucky to be exposed to how he applied himself for a year as well.”

Harnedy recalls Ó hAilpín felt he had to broach the matter with him.

“Ah, you’d always hear things on the street but he just clarified it with me in passing one day at one of the games. He’s a hero now to be fair and his legacy will long live in Cork.”

Diplomacy is obviously another skill Harnedy possesses but coming from a junior club he knew there was a chance he could be overlooked. It strengthened his determination to be noticed but playing for UCC also put him in the shop window.

“I suppose the focus was always trying to make myself better. There’s always going to be doubts when you’re 18/19, ‘I’m not going to make it now’ because typically if you’re not in the minor set-up you’re not going to make the U21 set-up but look, thankfully I went to college in UCC.

“I was exposed to some great coaches and managers there and I just got a breakthrough and look, I was keen to take it with two hands and thankfully I did and it kind of just snowballed and I just had good coaches behind me.

“In fairness to Cork they spread the net fairly wide, you’d have Mark Ellis there from Millstreet as well and it’s starting to creep in. If you’re good enough, I think you’ll make it. That kind of was the key message in the back of my head all along.”

If there was a sense that Cork were keen to move on from the successful defence of their Munster title last Sunday week, it was more to do with the new structure than anything else, Harnedy says.

“That was just the mindset from the Munster Championship itself. With the four games in five weeks, the turnover time is very quick. You literally get off the pitch and it’s almost instantly into recovery mode. Like, when you’re waking up Monday morning you’ve only six more mornings until your next game. I think that was a philosophy throughout the Munster Championship and that just fed into after the Munster final.”

He happily reports Darragh Fitzgibbon and Robbie O’Flynn are back training despite coming off in last week’s empathic Munster U21 final win over Tipperary.

“I think there were a few knocks and they’re back in training already, thank God. We were sweating a bit. I was straight onto Twitter to see the Robbie O’Flynn replay myself but thankfully he’s fine and the other lad is fine. He (Darragh) had been sick but he’s over the worst of it, thank God.”

While hurling on Leeside is buoyant again, Harnedy felt for the Cork footballers after their heavy Championship exit to Tyrone at the weekend.

“Look, it’s a tough place to be and my heart does go out to them. It’s never a nice place to be, I’ve been there before on inter-county days. It’s a bleak place at times but, look, all I can say is hopefully they get back to the drawing board now and you’re never as good or as bad as what they say so hopefully they rally the troops now, get all behind each other again. Hopefully there’s not too much of a fallout and they can go at it again.

“It’s only a few years ago they started playing down the chances of the hurlers as well so look, hopefully they can have a quick turnaround. It’s important now they just get back to it as soon as possible. Obviously, they’re going to be licking their wounds for a week or two. Just get back to their clubs, get back in good environments again and just try and go back and improve themselves on a daily basis and hopefully things will turn around for them.”