After suffering a third cruciate ligament injury in five years back in March, 2013, Colm O'Neill wondered if he would ever get to wear the red and white jersey again.

Now, two years later, he will spearhead the Rebels attack as they take on Dublin in tomorrow's Division One decider.

"There were times I was definitely thinking 'Will I ever get back to play with Cork?'," he admitted to The Irish Independent.

"The one positive I had was I knew that, if I put in the hard work, I'd have the opportunity to come back into a good squad.

"And that there might be opportunities to play in big games like this one."

Supporters looking forward to "a very open, free-flowing" game of football tomorrow might be left disappointed warns the Ballyclough player.

"Donegal probably get hammered more than anyone for their style. They still get the brunt of it for some reason as the team that's the most defensive, but our semi-final against them was quite open.

"We'd be very disappointed as a team with the amount of scores we conceded. And Donegal might easily have got another 2-3. Look, I think every team is probably a bit more defensive this year.

"I mean there was a lot of attention on the Dublin-Derry game in this League, with the reaction to it afterwards on Twitter. I suspect that both teams just set up defensively. And who is to say Dublin aren't going to set up defensively against us now?

"After what happened them against Donegal last year, I think they realised they probably had to change. So that's something we're going to have to be prepared for.

"A lot of people seem to think it's going to be a very open, free-flowing game. But they might be surprised!"

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