Seán Morantalks to the Cork manager ahead of their opening league match with Donegal.

This is going to be a big season for Cork. The only side to beat Kerry in the championship last year, Billy Morgan's team have also been All-Ireland semi-finalists for the past two seasons. Despite this, their profile on the national stage is subdued, although closer to home sentiment is more optimistic.

"Expectations are high," according to Morgan, "unbelievably high, but the public are fickle. At the moment people in the street are talking about the All-Ireland, but that's fairly premature and we'll see what lies ahead.

"Kerry are always going to be hard to beat, even if players like Séamus Moynihan and Michael McCarthy have retired and they're under new management. They've a lot of strength in the panel. I think as well that once Tyrone get their players all back that they will be contenders. I see them as being the top two.

"Dublin, Armagh and, I would hope, ourselves make up the next tier, but I don't necessarily believe that we're in the top four just because we were in the last two All-Ireland semi-finals."

Morgan is aware that the past two seasons of championship progress haven't been based on promising league campaigns. This year the stakes are higher, with only the top four teams in the Division One sections qualifying for next year's strictly hierarchical top flight.

This season he is putting a priority on the league campaign in a manner that was impossible 12 months ago.

"Last year there was a shortage of players. Nemo were in the All-Ireland series, Carbery Rangers in the intermediate club, the under-21s on the way to an All-Ireland final, as well as the college teams in their competitions.

"I gave leeway to those teams, whereas this year I would want anyone involved available for the league. We've no one involved in the club championship and we'll take priority over the under-21 championship."

Cork were impressive on the way to winning a Munster title and defeating eventual All-Ireland winners Kerry in the process. But in the eyes of most observers, the most striking aspects of the team were a highly industrious work-ethic and skilful defending but a desperate dependence on James Masters for scores.

"Our record throughout showed that we weren't scoring enough," says Morgan, "only around 10 or 11 per game. I think our highest was 1-11 against Kerry and even that's not a great total."

He believes that the young attack he fielded is capable of more as it develops, and with physical maturity can raise the productivity levels as well as the capacity to compete and win ball.

"The likes of Donnacha O'Connor, John Hayes, Kevin O'Sullivan, Fintan Goold and Kevin McMahon - they are all capable of scoring. I think that we'll see them develop that side of the game as they develop physically and become better ball winners. They have to be able to get in where it hurts."

Experience will also be an important part of the forwards' development. Although Kerry were worthy six-point winners last August, Morgan feels that their passage to the All-Ireland final could have been made more demanding.

"Kerry were four up early in the second half, but we had chances of easy points but started going for goals very early. If we had taken the simple, knock-over points maybe we could have kept it down to a point or two going into the final few minutes. But there was no doubt they deserved to win."

The push to establish the team will start in the league. It's eight seasons since Cork won the NFL and that was the last time the county even reached the play-offs. The championship spin-off saw the team go all the way to the 1999 All-Ireland final. Morgan accepts that serious improvement this year requires improvement in the coming weeks.

"We need more consistency in the league. We've tended to do well against very good teams and slip up against less fancied opposition. I would like us to start beating the teams we're expected to beat and be at least competitive against the others."

One deeply debilitating aspect of last year's championship was the loss with a cruciate injury of top defender Graham Canty in the dying moments of the Munster final replay success. Morgan is confident that the player will see some action during the coming campaign, which starts tomorrow under lights against Donegal in Páirc Uí Rinn.

"Graham is going well. He does everything right and leaves nothing to chance. His aim has been to get back for the end of the National League and play a couple of games and he's on target for that."