Ronan McCarthy: Reaching Super 8s vital to Rebels

Cork football manager Ronan McCarthy has said it is “vital” for the development of his team that they progress to the Super 8s. Cork were yesterday morning drawn against Laois in round four of the qualifiers, a hurdle no Cork team has managed to successfully negotiate since 2014.

Victory at Thurles this Saturday would guarantee McCarthy’s charges a Croke Park outing against reigning All-Ireland champions Dublin the weekend following and, in the process, bridge a three-year gap to the last time the county played a football championship game at GAA HQ. Cork’s second Super 8s fixture, should they buck the trend of four consecutive round-four qualifier defeats over the past four years, would also be played at Croke Park.

The Cork manager knows there are many benefits to his team being involved in the All-Ireland quarter-final round-robin, not least the three games it would deliver, but is loathe to look beyond this weekend’s assignment.

“It is vital for the development of the team [that we make the Super 8s], but we are keeping our focus on Saturday because the danger here is that if you are looking at the next step, you fall at the first one,” McCarthy said yesterday evening.

“Let’s get there first and then we can talk about the benefits of it. I don’t want to look any further than Saturday. Laois would feel they have every chance of beating us, as we would them. I think that makes it a very attractive game.” Immediately following their 1-19 to 3-10 Munster final defeat to Kerry on Saturday week last, McCarthy expressed confidence that his team would prove a “handful” for whoever they drew in the qualifiers, a point he reiterated here.

The main positive to take from their Munster final performance, he said, was that it added to a body of work stretching back to the league win over Tipperary on March 2 where Cork have been consistent on each occasion they’ve stepped inside the whitewash.

Anthony Daly reviews the hurling weekend with Brian Hogan, TJ Ryan and Ger Cunningham. In association with Renault - car partners of the GAA.

“We are very consistent at the moment. With that, you kinda come into the game knowing rather than hoping that you are going to give a good account. With the team we have, if we give a good account of ourselves, we’ll be a handful for any team, including Laois.

“Do we take confidence from the Munster final display? I don’t know. I would take confidence from the consistency of our performances since March, that’s what I’d be more interested in. It is important that continues on Saturday, that we are competitive, consistent, and that we know every time we go out, regardless of the opposition, that we are going to give a performance to a seven or eight out of 10 level.

“Over the last number of years, in my time as manager, there has been huge highs and lows in relation to performance.

I think and I hope that element of inconsistency, I’m not going to say it is gone, but certainly, the signs are that we are performing on much more of an even keel every time we go out.

On the injury front, the news was not massively positive and even though he will name his team this (Tuesday) evening, there could be changes to it later in the week as the availability of Eoghan McSweeney (groin), John O’Rourke (hamstring), and Tom Clancy (ankle) becomes more clear.

Corner-back Nathan Walsh is unlikely to make the Laois game because of the minor hamstring strain which forced him off midway through the Munster final defeat. There are no injury concerns surrounding Ruairí Deane.

“Nathan isn’t as bad as we first feared. The problem is the quick turnaround. If you have any sort of niggle now, it is a minimum of two weeks. I would think Saturday’s game would probably come too quick for him. If we were to win, I think he’d be available very soon after that.

“Eoghan McSweeney hasn’t trained fully [since before the Munster final] but we would expect he’d train fully this week and so will be considered for selection. Tom Clancy (Clonakilty) trained over the weekend. He is still not pain-free, but we would hope that he would train fully this week. John O’Rourke still hasn’t trained. He is running but hasn’t joined in full training. I would say we will have to make a call on him later in the week.”