18.58 – Good evening. You’ve joined us just in time for the throw in to the National League openner in Pairc Ui Rinn.

Optimism is high in cork with the return of JBM. Is it the same in Waterford.

We’re about to find out.

19.01 – Shane O’Sullivan, Aidan Kearney and Maurice Shanahan are all late withdrawals from the Waterford.

We’re just about ready to get underway.

19.36 – The rot has slowed slightly as we near the half time break, Paudie O’Mahoney with another score to bring the Deise tally up to seven.

20.27 – Gavin O’Brien is a young man who might just have a running battle with Lehane for many years to come. The teenager marks his league debut with a score from play.

Seconds later, his nemesis in the red jersey grabs another stunning score from play, his seventh, this time from the right hand side.

JBM calls Lehane ashore, and Pairc Ui Rinn rises to it’s feet to see him off.

20.40 – Jimmy Barry Murphy, also speaking to WLR FM, was happy with the result but wasted little time in sending out a stark warning to his players that there is plenty of work ahead of them.

“Home venue is always a very good advantage – we had a bad start but we got the goals and that really settled us down first half.”

“We’re going to be very hard on the players, the second half here wasn’t great and we’ve an awful lot to improve.”

“We go on to play Dublin in Croke park and that’s a huge test because,as I said, home advantage is such a huge thing.”

20.45 – Well, there you have it folks.

Cork are off to an absolute flyer in the National Hurling League with a comprehensive win over their neighbours.

They started both halves poorly, though. And that is one area JBM is certain to seek to remedy.

In Conor Lehane they have a real gem. We mentioned him earlier in the week as one to watch and he certainly hasn’t shirked the limelight.

Thanks for following the liveblog tonight, be sure to come back to thescore.ie tomorrow for another big day of hurling action.