BY JOHNNY CAROLAN
CORK hurling manager Pat Ryan is an equable man.
By and large, whether the Rebels win or lose, the boss is a measured figure, saying what he thinks while also keeping his cards close.
So, when, at last week’s press evening prior to Saturday’s Munster SHC final against Limerick, how he felt about the hype that had risen up around Cork in the wake of the Allianz HL victory, the strength – and clarity – of his response laid clear exactly what he thought.
‘To be honest, we weren’t talking about it inside here but it’s hard because fellas are amateur athletes,’ he says.
‘They’re going into work, you’re hearing it. I’m not on social media, [but] fellas are seeing it on social media, there’s text messages going around.
‘There was even one came to my phone about Saving Private Ryan at one stage, but that’s the like of it. A fella sent that to me on the Sunday morning before the match and I was thinking, “What the…?!’”
‘You get on with that. Don’t get me wrong – I know that’s the game we’re in now as well, that's why we had a media night, we feel we need to promote the games. Some people don’t have them but we like to have them because I think we’re here to promote the games, fellas want to hear and read about the matches.
‘I loved reading about the matches myself when I wasn’t involved. That’s why we do it but, from my point of view, I thought some of it was rubbish.
‘The really annoying thing was some of our own people writing off Limerick – are they off their game? That’s only setting us up for a fall. They’re things that fellas pin to dressing rooms and that couldn’t be further from the truth.
‘We try to be as humble as we can, that’s what we try to do in Cork. There was a thing written ages ago around the football thing, which I’d say John Cleary hates, this thing about ‘Corkness’.
‘It drives me mad when I hear that thing. What’s Corkness?
‘It’s about representing the jersey as best we can instead of that. I just thought a lot of it was wrong, even about Paddy Power paying, that was only a gimmick and a stunt and wrong for a betting company to be doing that for amateur athletes, putting them under that pressure.’
Within the Cork camp, the pressure is on to show that the 16-point loss three weeks ago was not an accurate reflection on the team.
‘What I would say is if you lose by five or six points, you can say we were tired or the three-week break or we had a long campaign coming off the league final,’ Ryan says, ‘but when you get hammered like that, you just look at it systemically, where was that attitude from and we just left them hurl all over the field.
‘It was a puzzling one and I probably look back on my own role, maybe I didn’t go after them enough. Maybe I wasn’t driving the standard over the last couple of weeks and maybe a small bit of complacency slipped in, in that we were going well enough but look, obviously, Limerick were well prepared.
‘They had a lot of stuff right on the day, as they always do. You can see that was a game they had really targeted since we beat them in the All-Ireland semi-final.
‘Our job is to make sure we’re right the next day.’
Of course, Cork could play well and still lose, given what’s in front of them. Ryan admires the Shannonsiders from afar and knows the challenge is great.
‘I think what John [Kiely] and Paul [Kinnerk] have done is they’ve created a situation where their players play all the time,’ he says.
‘Their effort is brilliant, they represent the jersey fantastic all the time.
‘I don’t know the Limerick lads that well, I wouldn’t know them at all, but what I will say is, after we beat them last year in the semi-final, how humble they were, how genuine they were on the field afterwards wishing us the best of luck.
‘Sometimes when a team is winning, you get jealous…but I didn’t get that feeling from those guys at the time. And even the last day, they were magnanimous, they don’t rub your noses in it, they’re not talking behind your back, not making comments.
‘They’re really good winners and they’ve won an awful lot and that day they did lose, I thought they were brilliant and their character was excellent.
‘Look, we knew they would come back in 2025 with a revenge mission and that’s where they’re at. It’s up to ourselves and every other team to see if we can step forward and man up to it.’
