Cadogan ready for a whole new ball game

WHEN the call came, it jolted Eoin Cadogan’s senses.

After the Cork hurlers tumbled out of championship action last month, the Douglas man was nursing the wounds of defeat and musing on the prospect of an idle season ahead.

Then Conor Counihan popped up, armed with the offer for Cadogan to enlist with the Cork footballers.

After absorbing the initial shock, Cadogan reasoned that this was a huge stroke of fortune. From a situation in late July where he looked set to be a bystander in the big GAA summer show, suddenly he could be involved with a team with real All-Ireland ambitions.

With a blockbuster All-Ireland semi-final against Tyrone next Sunday looming large, who wouldn’t want a slice of that sort of action? “I was very disappointed after the Galway game, but then I got the call a few days after from Conor,” recalls Cadogan.

“It was a bit of a shock really. But any fella who gets a call like that is extremely lucky. And when you’re called into any inter-county team, you’re definitely going to go back.”

Part of the attraction was that Cadogan was signing a contract that was clear and precise. He was pledging his allegiance for the rest of the 2009 season, but there were no hidden implications of a long-term obligation to the Cork football cause.

He was entrusted with the No 3 jersey by Denis Walsh for the Cork hurlers this summer and after making that breakthrough, Cadogan’s sense of loyalty deters him from now shunning those that gave him such a chance.

“I made a commitment to the hurling this year and I got my break with the hurling. So I’m sure all the lads would understand that as well. I spoke to Denis Walsh as well before I came back playing the football.”

Cadogan has slipped neatly back into the football setup and is comfortable with the dynamic in the squad. ! “I know the lads from 2007 so I get on well with them. Coming back, I looked at it as starting again no matter how late in the year it was. Just to give it a crack and things seem to be going alright for me.”

Growing up, the notion of being a dual star was alien to Cadogan.

His describes himself as having been “an absolutely terrible U16 footballer”, yet in Douglas they persisted with him, and he became a fixture in both codes for the Cork minor and U21 teams.

But the inordinate demands placed on time and body, means combining both at senior level is a gruelling ordeal. “It’s very hard at inter-county level with the amount of commitment and intensity that’s brought to training,” says Cadogan.

The most relevant dual experience that he has, is from the spring of 2007. Back then, his calendar consisted of days training under Davy Fitzgerald with the Limerick IT Fitzgibbon Cup hurlers and nights training under Billy Morgan with the Cork senior footballers.

In hindsight he regards it as a blessing, having such an exacting training regime early in the year but maintaining a schedule comparable to that for a full season would be arduous.

“It was the one year I was up in LIT with Davy and the training stood to me so early on. We were training from January on for the Fitzgibbon and when I came back to Cork for the U21s, I was flying fit. That was more a help than anything else. But trying to do that all year is a different scenario.”

When pressed on how near he is to the Cork starting 15, Cadogan advises his inquisitors to probe Conor Counihan for that information.

But his presence does offer the Cork management a viable defensive option off the bench. They’ll need all the help they can get come Sunday afternoon. Tyrone are formidable opponents and while Cork may not have prior championship experience of colliding against the Red Hands, they have stockpiled enough information to be aware of the fearsome capabilities of Mickey Harte’s men.

“Everyone knows what a team Tyrone are and it is going to be a massive battle. It’s going to be a great occasion for us. I didn’t expect to be involved in something like this earlier this year but I’m delighted I am now.”