Niall O'Leary believes Cork have to dig out results in their opening two Munster Hurling Championship matches at Páirc Uí Chaoimh to put themselves in position to progress.
The Rebels lost their first two games last year before rescuing their campaign with victories away to Waterford and Tipperary.
This year, those two counties will travel to Leeside in the space of six days, starting with Davy Fitzgerald’s Waterford on Sunday (4pm).
"It will be important to get a result in both of them," says the Castlelyons corner-back, who will captain the team in the absence of Seán O’Donoghue.
"It's a Munster championship, now that you can't be chasing. You need to get a result early on to do well in it."
With Cork the last team to enter the championship cauldron, league form is all we have to judge on.
They showed encouraging steel with experimental line-ups to grind out a series of stoppage-time results but limped out against Kilkenny at the semi-final stage.
"I don't think we started as well as we should have. We just didn't play up to standard. We were a bit flat. That was about it," says O’Leary.
Not that they’ve let the five-week break affect their preparations: "We've been playing a lot of in-house games and they've been every bit as tough as any of the league games we've played. We're lucky enough that they're so competitive."
That sense of places not being guaranteed to anyone comes from the influx of talent from Pat Ryan’s All-Ireland under-20 winning teams of 2020 and ’21.
"There definitely is a big step-up from underage level to playing senior for Cork. Now, to be honest, this bunch of young players who came in have really taken to it a lot faster than previous ages. They've done very well," says O’Leary, now in his fifth year on the panel.
"That's something the management team put in place early on. There's a trust that has been put forward to them that if they're going well in training, they're going to be picked.
"That has shown throughout the league and I think that's why there have been such good performances coming from these younger lads. They know that there's a trust there from management that they're going to do well."
Eoin Downey may be missing through suspension for the Waterford opener but O’Leary is full of praise for how he has fitted in at full-back.
"He's been very impressive in the league. He's just slotted in there. It seems to be a breeze to the man.
"He's very laid back in general anyway so it's been easy for him to fit in with us. He's a great fella to play beside. He's always there to look after his position as well, which is a great sign.
"The way he's playing, you're looking at him and thinking he's been there for the last five or six years. It's great to get a fella like that to fill a position like that which is so important on the field.
"You don't have to look over your shoulder. You know that he's going to come out with the ball. If you get in trouble, you know that he's going to be there to help you."
As for Ryan’s influence as a first-year manager, O’Leary is asked about the differences in the set-up this term.
"There's been nothing majorly different that he's brought to it but we've just gelled well with him. He's a fierce nice fella to get along with and that's a big thing with him."
He picks out Tony Kelly and Jason Forde as being among the toughest players he’s been tasked with marking, while Patrick Horgan, Shane Kingston, and Jack O’Connor rank among the most difficult to tag in training.
Still, O’Leary isn’t one for going deep into reams of research on his opponents.
"No, that's one thing I don't do. I suppose you kind of know these fellas already so there's probably no need to be doing much research into them. You know what they're good at when you go into games.
"It's something we do beforehand as a group. We'd have a couple of lads who we'd pick out and you'd know what they're good at. It's something you can look at then coming into the game."
Amid the rising scorelines of modern hurling, the art of defending has changed. The days of holding an opponent scoreless being the only successful outcome are gone.
"The forwards you're marking these days are so good, and there's so much space created for fellas like that in the inside line, if they get two or three points you're still doing well enough," says O’Leary.
"You have to take into consideration that they are going to score. Once you can keep them to a certain limit, you're doing well enough.
"It's definitely something we've been working on with the likes of Gary Keegan on that mental game.
"For us in the back line, it's something we probably would have previously said that you're trying your best to keep your man scoreless. But in this day and age, if you can limit your man to a certain point you're doing well."
Watch Kilkenny v Galway and Cork v Waterford in the Leinster and Munster Hurling Championships on Sunday from 1.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on the RTÉ News app or RTÉ.ie/Sport and listen to live commentary on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
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