Following successive defeats against Galway, Waterford and Dublin, Cork find themselves in a dangerous position in Division 1A.
Ahead of their crunch tie against All-Ireland champions Kilkenny this weekend, Cork can only contemplate victory if they are to have a chance of escaping relegation.
Sunday Times sports reporter Denis Walsh, spoke to Off The Ball's Ger Gilroy about the current crisis in Cork and began by assessing their overwhelming defeat to Dublin last Saturday evening.
''Cork's performance last Saturday night was not acceptable from every point of view and there was a massively hostile reaction to it in Cork. Nine of the team who started last week, started in the All-Ireland final in 2013, and they've been to two league finals in the past few years. They know what it's like to win.'
Walsh added that Cork have been prioritising championship ahead of the League, with their sights firmly fixed on Tipperary. And while this might explain Cork's run of disappointing results, Sunday Times sports journalist also cautioned that consistently underperforming in Division 1 is not an advisable path.
''Division 1A is such a cut-throat competition and if your focus is in anyway blurred, there's a chance that you're gonna pay and that certainly was the case last Saturday.''
''Confidence is a huge issue and the new management are going down a new road this year. Their intention is to be more defensive and harder to break down and that might be hard to believe given the performances we've seen so far. There's a serious lack of aggression.''
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