Cork won the title with relative ease in 2017, but owed their title win to the superb form they produced in the first half of the campaign.
The Rebel Army were never quite the same side after losing Sean Maguire to Preston in July 2017, but Cork already had a big enough lead at the top for that to not affect their title win. The big question regarding them going into the new campaign was how they would replace the departed striker's goals.
Graham Cummins was the man who was signed to fill Maguire's boots, but the journeyman striker was unable to meet the expectations, having managed only a modest return of 14 league goals.
Despite having several players capable of scoring and having Kieran Sadlier play the best football of his career, the Rebel Army looked short of ideas in most of the games in which they had to packed defences.
They actually had a reasonably good league campaign and would have been in contention to win the title on most occasions, but Dundalk were simply too good, with John Caulfield not having the firepower required to match the eventual champions.
After beating Dundalk in their first two meetings this season, Cork lost to the Lilywhites in their next three, with the latest of these results coming in the FAI Cup final.
John Caulfield's men have therefore finished as runners-up in the country's two most important tournaments and will spend the winter trying to work their way back to being Ireland's top dogs again.
