The fabled wing back reckons Jimmy Barry Murphy will need at least three years to revive the glory days of Cork hurling, writes GAVIN CUMMISKEY

SEÁN ÓG Ó hAilpín is asked if there’s another All-Ireland in his bones. “Hand on heart? No.”

He slowly shakes the head and repeats, “No, no.”

Always honest, never boring, hurling was the poorer for his absence in 2011.

But this could be it. He will be 35 come the championship opener against Limerick or Tipperary on June 24th.

To label this the second coming of Seán Óg is too easy. It seems more akin to a former heavyweight champion, legacy already secure, dipping back between the ropes because that’s just what he has always done. Ever since Jimmy Barry Murphy invited him aboard the Cork ship way back in 1996.

“The one difference is I was a 19-year-old going into that set-up and all of a sudden you had the likes of Teddy McCarthy, Jim Cashman, Kieran McGuckian, Seánie Mac, John O’Driscoll all finishing up. We’ve some experienced fellas left like Niall McCarthy, John Gardiner, Donal Óg and Tom Kenny.

“It took Jimmy three years before we’d assembled a team to compete again and maybe it is a wise move to give Jimmy three years again, cause usually managers only get two.

“Will I be there? I don’t think so. I’d love to be part of another winning team but it’s premature to say that now until Cork get back to competing consistently.”

Now JBM’s return, that’s more of a second coming. First time around he blended Ó hAilpín and others into a decaying panel, delivering an All-Ireland in 1999. What followed will always be known as the great Rebel era of men like Ben O’Connor and Brian Corcoran – the greatest hurlers Seán Óg ever “soldiered” alongside.

But 1996 to 2012 is an awful lot of soldiering. Denis Walsh thought so, cutting Ó hAilpín from last year’s panel, only for Barry-Murphy to reinvent the storied wing back as a midfielder during the current league campaign.

“It was an offer I couldn’t refuse,” said the soldier of the Don’s request.

He struggles to tell us about last week’s announcement, that Ben O’Connor would never again wield one of his father’s famous hurley’s in Cork red.

“Okay, I’ll try and explain it as best I can. Before Jimmy announced the team last week, even the senior guys who had soldiered with Ben had no inkling this was coming, he said Ben had announced it.

“A deep, empty feeling comes inside someone like myself who has soldiered with him for years.

“He has pulled games out of the bag for us so many times, and when someone like that goes, it’s like a close relative leaving shores that you mightn’t see again. Because that is the reality; when you leave the scene that’s it. I’ve been trying to get my head around it that someone like Ben and the calibre of the person, like, is leaving.

“Guys like Ben and his brother Jerry only come once in a generation.

“But at the end of the day, he doesn’t owe anyone anything, and if that was his call and that’s what he felt, you have nothing but respect for that decision, and wish him the best. But he is going to be a huge loss to the forwards.

“What a player, what a player.”

Did you bid him farewell?

“Yeah, I phoned him and I thanked him for the memories. He would definitely be up there with Brian Corcoran as one of the best players that I ever togged alongside, and I just wished him the best luck in what he did. Next time we play Newtownshandrum in a club match we’ll see him, we’ll have a few words after that.”

It moves on. Kilkenny remain up ahead. Ó hAilpín knows Sunday’s visitors to Páirc Uí Chaoimh would put “100 points” on them if they could. “There’s no letting up with them.”

But the animosity that existed when Cork contested All-Ireland finals with Kilkenny between 2003 and 2006 is dormant.

“We’re way down the pecking order, that’s the reality,” said Ó hAilpín, who is an ambassador for the 2012 An Post Cycle Series supported by the Irish Sports Council.

“Maybe we don’t want to admit it but that’s where we are. It’s a matter of working ourselves back up there. I’ve no doubt we will but the likes of myself won’t be there at that stage but if we can help in some way before we’re all shipped out then it’d be worth staying the journey with these young fellas.”