Jamie O’Sullivan starts for Cork in only change for league final

Cork manager Brian Cuthbert has made just one change to the team which defeated Donegal a fortnight ago to reach Sunday’s Division One league final against Dublin.

Half-back Jamie O’Sullivan comes into the side in place of the injured Brian O’Driscoll who has been named among the substitutes.

Daniel Goulding and Paul Kerrigan start from the bench once more with 12 of the team who defeated Dublin in round one of the league at Pairc Uí Rinn again named to start.

Corner forwards Colm O’Neill and Brian Hurley will again look to cause the Leinster champions headaches off-the-back of their combined three goals against Donegal.

Cuthbert has also revealed that former All-Ireland winning midfielder Alan O’Connor has rejoined the Cork panel having walked away following the 2013 campaign.

O’Connor will not be available for this weekend’s league final but the 29-year-old will be involved thereafter.

Ian Maguire, Ruairi Deane, Donncha O’Connor and Patrick Kelly all remain unavailable to Cuthbert through injury.

Meanwhile the GAA announced on Thursday that it will not be hosting the Croke Park Classic in 2016 because of the “strength of the dollar against the euro.”

The American Football game between Boston College and Georgia Tech would have been the third of its kind in Ireland following the Emerald Isle Classic between Notre Dame and Navy at the Aviva Stadium in 2012 and last summer’s Croke Park Classic between Penn State and the University of Central Florida.

Last year's event proved controversial with the All-Ireland football semi-final replay between Mayo and Kerry having to be moved to the Gaelic Grounds in Limerick to facilitate it.

While the 2016 event had not yet been announced it was expected to take place over the last weekend in August to avoid a repeat of last summer’s drama.

The GAA said in a statement on Thursday though that “the strength of the dollar against the euro means that the staging of the game at Croke Park was no longer viable for the Association without significant support from government agencies.”

Elsewhere Mayo forward Evan Regan has been ruled out for a further three months after suffering a re-occurrence of the collar-bone injury he sustained after falling awkwardly in the Allianz league opening round against Kerry.

The 21-year-old corner forward had only recently returned to contact based training having travelled with the team to Portugal. The Ballina Stephenites attacker then suffered a break to the same collar bone last Tuesday night whilst training in Castlebar.

CORK (AFL v Dublin): Ken O'Halloran; Tom Clancy, Michael Shields, James Loughrey; Jamie O'Sullivan, Conor Dorman, Tomas Clancy; Eoin Cadogan, Fintan Goold; Kevin O'Driscoll, John O'Rourke, Colm O'Driscoll; Colm O'Neill, Mark Collins, Brian Hurley.

Subs: Paddy O’Shea, Stephen O’Donoghue, Noel Galvin, Stephen Cronin, Brian O’Driscoll, Daniel Goulding, Paul Kerrigan, John Hayes, Barry O’Driscoll.