![\"Nemo](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/4830921_7_articleinlinemobile_EOHNemopress07.jpg\" "\\"Nemo")
Nemo Rangers and Cork forward Mark Cronin. Pic: Eddie O’Hare<\/p>\nYou\u2019d do well to find a conversation regarding Nemo and Sunday\u2019s Cork football final that doesn\u2019t revolve around Mark Cronin. The half-forward is their creative pulse. They tick to his watch and wand.<\/p>\n
Nemo Rangers boss Robbie O\u2019Dwyer reckons there is a definite correlation between Mark\u2019s now first-team status with Cork and his increased influence on the club stage.<\/p>\n
The surprise for O\u2019Dwyer is how said first-team status with Cork didn\u2019t arrive sooner.<\/p>\n
Cronin made his league debut when starting Cork\u2019s 2022 opener away to Roscommon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His championship debut was another 18 months in the distance, while a first championship start wasn\u2019t achieved until last year\u2019s Sam Maguire group win at home to Donegal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But even in that 2024 campaign, his number of starts across league and championship still only just shaded his number of appearances off the bench, seven to six.<\/p>\n
2025 was his first year of permanent residency. Began all 13 Cork games. Top-scored too with 1-71 (1-50 from the dead-ball).<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just thought he should have probably been in earlier. He was getting some playing time but very little, do you know what I mean,\u201d O\u2019Dwyer remarked of the 25-year-old’s elevation within John Cleary\u2019s Cork set-up.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s been a driving force for us this year. He’s a real leader and I think it’s showing in his performances as well. The bit of confidence of playing for Cork and getting the starts has been a huge difference to him. He’s been great with the group and he’s driving the fellas on as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s totally dedicated to the whole thing. He just looks after himself well and he does all the right things. He does what an inter-county player is supposed to do. He treats it as a profession really. He plays as a professional too and around the group he’s great.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nemo Rangers and Cork forward Mark Cronin. Pic: Eddie O’Hare<\/p>\n
With 1-30 to his name across their four-game run to Sunday\u2019s final, Cronin\u2019s play-making and score-taking will be central to their bid to avoid the unwanted bit of history of becoming the first Nemo team to suffer three consecutive county final defeats.<\/p>\n
For O\u2019Dwyer, the gnawing disappointment over last year\u2019s second consecutive coming-up-short against Castlehaven was less the 0-16 to 0-11 final scoreline and more the display tabled by the southside city men.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was gutted after the game, and I just thought we didn’t perform. We did have a good few injuries going into the game to some of our better players. I think we’re maybe a bit stronger on the bench this year than we were last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s always pressure when you’re involved in Nemo because you’re expected to get to county finals. Look, you’re playing your local neighbours, the Barrs, and that brings a small bit of spice to it as well. I do honestly think that the Barrs are probably the form team. We’re probably the underdogs going into this final. They’ve been playing well, they’ve been scoring a lot and they’re a good side.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
O\u2019Dwyer and his backroom have not stood still with the new rules. The game has evolved and Nemo have adapted.<\/p>\n
Two members of their 2024 county final full-back line, Briain Murphy and Kevin O\u2019Donovan, now operate far from those defensive postings. Murphy partners Barry Cripps at midfield, shoving Alan O\u2019Donovan into the same half-forward line where his brother now resides.<\/p>\n
The former switch was cooked up so as to put three imposing and aerially competent figures across halfway for both retention of their own restarts and spoiling of the opposition\u2019s.<\/p>\n
It was this successful stranglehold of the Newcestown kickout that proved the deciding factor in extra-time of their semi-final gripper.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe looked at the way the rules have gone and obviously kick-outs are everything now, so we needed a bit of physicality around the middle eight. Alan, obviously, has been performing brilliantly around the middle of the field always anyway and Briain has just been a revelation, so we moved him up there.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously you’re taking him away from the full-back line, which is where he’d been all the way up. It’s just that we felt we needed a bit of physicality around the middle of the field and the two of them have created that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rules kind of suited us. We like to move the ball at pace. We’re kind of a kicking team as much as we can be, and we try to move the ball from A to B as quickly as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You\u2019d do well to find a conversation regarding Nemo and Sunday\u2019s Cork football final that doesn\u2019t revolve around…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2110,15389,1964,61,60,112],"class_list":["post-99515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-cork-sport","tag-cork-county-championship","tag-cork-gaa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}