'When you are a little bit later in your career, you do realise it won’t last forever'

BY KIERAN McCARTHY

RUAIRI Deane is comfortable in silence. It doesn’t unnerve him. On his car journey from Bantry to Cork football training in a city venue, he could drive the entire way in silence. The same on the route home.

‘Absolute and utter silence, and I love it,’ he says, before offering an explainer.

‘Those car journeys allow me to process what I need to before I get to training or before I get home. Let’s say I have a tough day at work, well, then I can process that and deal with it.

Ruairi Deane in action for Bantry Blues.

‘I could be ten minutes from training when I realise I forgot to put on the radio, again.’

He missed that drive from Bantry to training when he was dropped off the Cork football panel, abruptly, ahead of the 2022 season. Deane didn’t see the end coming that quickly. Suddenly, he was on the outside looking in. He didn't foresee the call from new Cork football boss John Cleary in late 2022 either, which opened the door for the Bantry man’s inter-county return. He turned heads with his performances for Carbery and Bantry Blues in the county championships, and Cleary rewarded that form. A lot to process, again. And the chance to prove he can still cut it at the highest level.

‘There is a certain element of that, but as for unfinished business, not really,’ he muses.

‘I have had loads of opportunities with Cork. If I was good enough, I was. If I wasn’t, then I wasn’t. I was very thankful for the opportunity because I wasn’t happy with how it had finished for me. I would have liked to have offered a little bit more, and there was something I felt I could offer coming back in; that’s why I ultimately went back.’

While it was, in one sense, a no-brainer to rejoin the panel, life at home had changed in his ‘sabbatical’ year. Along came Cairbre (who will turn two next May) to join Setanta (who will be three in February), so the home front was busier than ever for Ruairi and his wife Niamh, who both work at Scoil Phobail Bhéara.

‘I’m often reminded that our two boys have my genes, so they’re fairly active,’ he laughs.

‘In fairness, I have the easy part in all of this – I get to go out the door and go to training, whereas Niamh is at home and the kids could be acting up or not sleeping. ‘On a normal training day, it’s drop the kids off, head off to Castletownbere, do the day’s work, then jump into car, drive to training in the city, eat along the way, do your session, have food, back in the car, head home, and land home for half 10 or 11.

‘I have the privilege of putting on the jersey but there are a lot more sacrifices made in my house than me going to training. I always acknowledge that. For me to do what I do, I have a huge backing from my wife, to pick up the slack when I am gone, it leaves a lot to do at home, and I’m lucky my mother helps out as well.’

Deane realises too that his inter-county clock is ticking. He will turn 33 in the year ahead. This is, in all likelihood, the final act of his Cork football career that had started in 2014, but took time to take off; the Bantry man was 25 when he started his first championship match for Cork, a Munster SFC clash against Waterford in May 2017. He doesn’t know how much time is left, but has vowed to make the most of this latest chance.

‘Time is going to run out on me at some stage,’ he admits.

‘This doesn’t last forever and I learned that the hard way a few years back (when Deane was cut from the panel) – and I got a big wake-up call. When you are a little bit later in your career, you do realise it won’t last forever. In the blink of an eye I am on the other side of it.

‘If this year is the final year, and who knows what’s going to happen, I am going out with the mentality that there will be no regrets on my side. If I’m gone, I’m gone. It’s next man up. There is a fantastic panel being developed in Cork, and I won’t be missed in 12 months’ time, it will be next man up, that’s the way it is.

‘Time isn’t on my side. Last season could have been my last, who knows what’s coming at the end of every year, whether the manager wants you or not. Last season was successful within reason, but more progress to be made.’

Deane wants to play a role in the next phase of John Cleary’s plan. If 2023 laid the base, the target is to step it up again in the season ahead. It was a mixed bag in ’23 – Cork finished fourth in Division 2 of the league, were dumped out of the Munster championship by Clare but regrouped to go on a run in the All-Ireland series and make the last eight where the Rebels lost to Derry.

‘We made progress,’ Deane says, ‘but if you ask any member of the panel they would acknowledge that while there has been progress, there is room for more from an individual and group perspective. That’s what the season ahead is about now, looking at what we need to fix and what we need to maintain from last season, and build on the progress that was made.’

One of the elder statesmen of the Cork set-up, Deane has suffered through enough bad days to appreciate the better times, and that applies to club level too. Again, in 2023 Bantry Blues lost the Cork Premier IFC final. That’s successive final defeats. To Kanturk in ’22, and now Cill na Martra.

‘If we are to be honest, we were in the final in ’22 but we weren’t really close whereas this year we felt we had a very good chance. It was a great game, Cill na Martra are a very good side, but we were gutted to lose. How do you get over a loss like that? I don’t know. I am less raw now,’ he says of their 3-11 to 2-13 heartbreak.

‘It was absolute misery losing it, but when I went home and you had two young kids who didn't care there was a match on and were up at seven o’clock either way, there isn’t too much time to feel sorry for yourself. You don’t get over it, but you have to get on with it.’

The Monday morning after losing the county final to Cill na Martra in late October, Ruairi and Niamh took Setanta and Cairbre to the pumpkin patch at The Farm in Grenagh. That wasn’t a quiet car trip, but it was just what he needed. That was a day when he didn’t need silence.