Jamie Coughlan is enjoying the intense competition for places in the Rebels' hurling team.

The Newtownshandrum clubman has contributed greatly to Cork's run to the 2012 national hurling league final but must be content with a place on the bench for Sunday's Thurles showdown with All-Ireland champions Kilkenny as Conor Lehane replaces him in the starting XV.

Looking forward to the final, he commented in The Examiner: "The first target was the Waterford game, then the Galway game - it was never, 'get to the league final', just the next game the whole time. Now we're in the league final we might as well go for it.

"You'd cherish any medal you win, any day. It'd be great to win it, in 20 years' time you'd be thinking, 'I won that at a young age', but that stuff is for the future, right now I'm only thinking about the game.

"We wanted a competitive game, so we're very happy with reaching the league final. The training's better because there's a competitive game at the end of it.

"There is competition but that's what we want. This day this fella mightn't go well or another fella, so when you get your chance you must go for it and take every chance you can.

"Even in practice games you'd notice that you might be named to play some place but the ten forwards we have are able to play anywhere in the forward line - we can chop and change and move around." Tweet

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