Corcoran ready for the fray

BRIAN CORCORAN’S fitness is no longer a concern for the Cork hurling management as the team continues its preparations for tomorrow week’s Guinness All-Ireland hurling final against Galway.

The Erin’s Own star was forced off injured in the first half of the semi-final against Clare, but manager John Allen revealed last night that he had taken a full part in training over the past fortnight.

Likewise, centre-back Ronan Curran, who had been injured in training, has made a full recovery.

Allen referred to Corcoran as the team’s “talisman.”

“He is fine! “He had a recurrence of his shoulder injury again, but it wasn’t as serious (as the last time). He has been doing all the training for the past fortnight. He’s not a concern,’’ he said, adding jocosely “unless Diarmuid (O’Sullivan) hits him a shoulder in training some night.’’

Allen made it clear that the management had no option but to take him off against Clare once it became obvious that he had a problem with his shoulder.

“Brian Lohan was certainly playing well, but Brian was also hampered by the fact that he was injured. We had to make a decision to replace him.’’

Meanwhile, he pointed out that Curran had “an altercation” in training. It happened when “somebody glanced off his jaw” with a shoulder. As a consequence, he missed a few nights training. On his return he didn’t engage in any of the physical activities, but had trained “properly” for the last two nights of this week.

Stressing the importance of Corcoran to the team, Allen said that management and players “couldn’t say enough about him,” both as a person and as a hurler - and as a great guy to have around.

“As a hurler in Cork he’s known as a legend, certainly the main Cork player for about 10 years,’’ he added.

The player had to be admired, he agreed, for agreeing to come back when it was clear that to a certain degree he was taking a risk in doing so.

“There was no certainty at the beginning of last year that he would make the team, or that he would be able to reach the fitness or the skill levels again. He deserves great credit for putting his hat in the ring.

“He’s a huge leader on the field, on and off the field - even though he doesn’t say very much.

“For us he has been described as a ‘talisman’ and he certainly is a talisman!’’

Asked if he felt Cork were going as well as last year, the Cork boss said, “I suppose the answer is no. We played better, certainly, last year, but this year we’re champions and every team wants to knock the champions.

“This year, as champions, there’s a different dynamic there which comes into play. As champions every team sees a game as an opportunity to knock you and we haven’t played as well as we did last year. Then again, Kilkenny over the past six years have been the team you’d measure yourself against and how many times did they put games back-to-back which were excellent?

“Still, there are only four or five games that matter any more in a year - maybe one or two for some teams - and putting a run of form together when there might be a month between matches is difficult enough to do. But definitely we haven’t played as well this year. We’re saving it for Sunday week.”