Cadogan a cool dual dude

THE medical experts may fret over him succumbing to the scourge of burnout and Cork supporters may worry about his ability to sustain a summer starring in both codes, but Eoin Cadogan’s approach to his incessant intercounty activities is calm and composed.

In three days time he will limber up for a Munster championship match for the fourth successive Sunday, yet that seemingly exhaustive schedule does not perturb him. He bats away media concerns over his sporting well-being and, for the Douglas man, weeks on end of training and matches are to be enjoyed rather than endured.

“To be honest, ye think about it way too much compared to me! I don’t even think about it, I enjoy what I do. If I go training, I go out to train hard. People say to me, ‘you’re off your head, you must be out seven nights a week’, but that’s not the case. The footballers and the hurlers both train on the Tuesdays and the Thursdays, if you’ve a game coming up you’ll train the Thursday with the team that has the match. It seems to be going okay for me so far.”

Cadogan acknowledges the people that facilitate his dual involvement. The lines of communication between Denis Walsh and Conor Counihan are well-documented, but those between respective trainers, Mark McManus and Aidan O’Connell, are equally significant.

“There’s great communication between Denis and Conor, they’re very sensible in their approach. Both physical trainers are very good friends and they’re monitoring my fitness. I find that football can be more physically demanding with all the hits that are going in and you definitely do a bit more running in the football.

“But it takes two or three days to get over any championship game. The Tipperary match was a bruising one and we were all sore after it. But that’s what you want, that’s what you train for and do the gym sessions for. It could get awkward maybe later on in the year. It’s worked so far though, touch wood, and we’ll see how the rest of the year goes.”

As a species the dual star was meant to be extinct, given the pressures on modern intercounty players. But Cadogan does not seem himself as pioneering the rebirth. Cork football teammate Aidan Walsh has similar dilemmas with his involvement with the county U21 hurling side. Yet Cadogan is adamant it’s not his responsibility to influence younger players to operate a dual mandate. “It’s different for every person. There were a lot of games clashing for Aidan, which was very hard. I’ve been lucky that no games have clashed so far. It’d be unfair of me to put pressure on other lads coming through. They have different situations and there are other pressures outside of the GAA that can affect a fella.”

His serene progress this season struck its first roadblock in late April when he incurred a foot injury that sidelined him for both of Cork’s National League final dates. But, despite having been in cold storage in the run up to the Tipperary Munster SHC tie three weeks ago, Cadogan was determined not to be effected by any fitness anxieties.

“I suppose it was a bit of a worry but Mark McManus and Aidan O’Connell gave me a programme to stick to when I was off so that I’d regain my fitness. I found it stood to me for the game as I didn’t feel that I was tiring out.

“You have to go out with a positive mind frame. If I was going out saying ‘I’ve missed the last six weeks’ you’d be going out with a negative start. If you had missed the first round of championship you’d have been gutted. You prepare from January to get a place on the championship team and I was just delighted to have it.”

For now the focus is on hurling matters. Cork’s splendid success over Tipp has seen their stock rise once more and Cadogan is well placed to assess the capabilities of the star of that triumph, Aisake O hAilpín. But he insists they must be wary of the unknown challenge from Limerick.

“Aisake’s got a huge workrate and he’s a great team player. He came in for a lot of criticism coming into the Tipp game and I was delighted to see him do so well. I know all about him from marking him in training, he is a handful and he is awkward, any fella that’s 6’ 6” coming at you with a ball is a hard man to stop.

“But you can’t underestimate Limerick. Any team under Justin McCarthy, whom I’ve worked with in Douglas for a while, will be well prepared. He’ll have them well-tuned and well-primed for the championship and you wouldn’t want to underestimate them. Nobody has shown them any respect, they’ve no wins, even in the league and they’re going to come down here with all guns blazing.”