It’s a corporate event that brings Cork’s Brian Hayes back to Croke Park for the first time since last year’s All-Ireland hurling final against Tipperary.It must be a little jarring, returning to the scene of Cork’s ruination?“Sure, I definitely wouldn’t be in bad form or anything coming up here,” Hayes said with a smile. “It’s a great stadium and it’s always great to look around the place.”The big forward is selling it well to be fair, giving the impression that Cork have genuinely filed last year’s Liam MacCarthy Cup final torment into a folder marked “old news”.But 10 months on, are they actually a better team now, ahead of Sunday’s last Munster SHC round-robin tie against Clare?There’s a new management for starters, headed up by Ben O’Connor, and if they line out against Clare the same way they did against Waterford last time out, they’d show four alterations from their 2025 All-Ireland final team.Damien Cahalane, Tommy O’Connell, Hugh O’Connor and William Buckley for Ciarán Joyce, Diarmuid Healy, Declan Dalton and Patrick Horgan are the four changes.“It doesn’t really matter who’s playing,” Hayes said. “I think you saw against Waterford that fellas are slipping in and slipping out, but the structure and the system stays the same. So it doesn’t really matter. But I do think we’ve definitely developed certain aspects of our game and hopefully now heading into the summer we can bring that towards another level.”A win or a draw at Páirc Uí Chaoimh will propel Cork through to the provincial decider. Lose and various possibilities come into play, from still qualifying for the Munster final to potentially finishing third.The one certainty, despite all the question marks, is that Cork have found a gem this year in Buckley, a player with the potential to add those marginal gains they’re striving for.Cork's William Buckley watches his shot go over the bar in last month's Munster SHC game against Tipperary. Photograph: James Lawlor/INPHO In his breakout year for Cork – the St Finbarr’s man was part of the extended panel last year – Buckley has featured in eight of their 10 league and championship games, starting all of the provincial ties.He fired 1-4 from play on his league debut against Waterford, and six points on his championship debut against Tipperary. In all, he has registered 1-24 since the start of the league, with 1-23 from play. Hayes, a Barr’s clubmate and neighbour, is well positioned to comment.“The drive and the want to get better is there,” Hayes said of Buckley, at the announcement that Clean Cut Meals is the official GAA/GPA ready meals partner.“The work ethic that he’s shown, first of all within the group and then outside the group. He’s been a credit to himself and it’s been great to see him progress. He’s only on the panel since last year, so the way he’s progressed, even from then, I think he can still reach another level in the future.”Hayes and Buckley grew up in the same estate and felt the magnetic pull of the local green, drawing them together to puck around. Hayes laughs at the suggestion that Buckley might be a little on the small side? The match programme for last year’s All-Ireland final actually lists Buckley as 6ft and almost 13 stone. Mind you, it lists Hayes as 6ft 7in yet he’s hardly that, even with winter studs on the boots.“People think he’s small, but he’s not that small and he’s definitely strong,” Hayes said. “He’d be up there in the rankings in the gym. The weight he’s lifting, it’s not like he’d be anywhere near the weakest or the smallest on the panel. It’s the same with other elements like sprinting and stuff like that. And his hurling is obviously one of his strong points.”For Hayes, the really important matter for Cork this weekend, and this summer, isn’t so much personnel changes or newcomers but output.He said immediately after the win over Waterford that the battling win was positive, because “a lot of questions have been asked” about Cork.What did he mean by that?“I was talking about some of the questions that would have been asked from within the management circles and within the group, not even questions from outside,” he said. “Like, our work rate in the league final, were we happy with that? They’d be some of the questions that I think we went after, that when we come in on a Monday, Ben can’t question our work rate. If we can do that, we’ll see where it takes us.”