BY JOHNNY CAROLAN
NOT since 1972 have Cork won the national hurling league, Munster championship and the All-Ireland in the one year.
Two of those three have been claimed in 2025 and the third will be played for on Sunday. If Cork do win, Robert Downey will be the man accepting the Liam MacCarthy Cup from GAA President Jarlath Burns.
The Glen Rovers man has proven to be a lucky charm as skipper, though he admits to being surprised when Pat Ryan asked him to succeed Seán O’Donoghue.
‘I was taken aback a small bit, yeah,’ he says.
‘I was delighted and hugely honoured. To be asked to be captain of any team is an honour, but to be asked to be captain of the Cork team is a massive honour, especially with the guys that we have.
‘We’re so close and so tight, so it’s something I’m quite proud of.’
The 25-year-old certainly hasn’t considered it a burden of any sort.
‘No, not really,’ he says, ‘but I have a lot of help too.
‘There are plenty of fellas with experience around the place and I don’t have to go too far for a bit of advice if I might need it. I suppose the biggest thing is that everybody in here is very driven, they want to push on and they want to drive standards every time we go training and every time we’re meeting up.’
In terms of advice, Downey picked the brains of fellow Glen man Stephen McDonnell, who led Cork to the Munster title in 2017, but by and large it has been a case of leading by example.
‘It would be quite organic,’ he says.
‘I was conscious not to change too much. Stephen McDonnell, a clubmate of mine, would have been captain of Cork before, I would have played with him, I spoke to Stephen alright.
‘Everyone I would talk to would say that ‘Maccie’ was one of the best captains they ever played under. The conversation, there wasn’t too much, but he just gave a small bit of advice. And the biggest thing was that if you’re performing on the field, then guys will follow you.
‘We have plenty of guys to do jobs all over the field but the biggest thing is you can’t say too much or do too much different; just do our job and do it as best you can on the pitch.’
Cork have done that more often than not, despite the huge levels of attention – which have tended to be characterised as ‘hype’ outside the county. Within the camp, Downey maintains that the focus is strong.
‘At times it can be hard, but it can be hard in a good way,’ he says.
‘There’s an awful lot of interest with Cork people in Cork teams in general, and the fact we’ve got on a run, got to a final, you’re obviously going to be asked questions. It’s a nice thing that they’re interested, they’re coming from a good place but at times you might not want to talk about the game and stuff.
‘But I think experience helps to block out the noise. We know what’s important. Getting our preparation done on the training field, that’s the most important thing to help us perform on the weekends.’
