Shields singles out Brogan for special praise

CORK defender Michael Shields admitted Dublin marksman Bernard Brogan is ‘a class act’ after yesterday’s All-Ireland semi-final and revealed he would not begrudge the attacker if he went on to claim the Footballer of the Year award.

Brogan maintained his sublime form this season with another exceptional display, scoring 1-7, but Shields did do an excellent job in stymieing his influence when switched onto him for the second-half.

“You have to give credit to Brogan. He’s a class act and he stuck that goal brilliantly early on. It was a long ball in and Ray (Carey) was unlucky in getting caught after he stepped out.

He kicked one point after I had just switched onto him. Another one then, I gave away the ball myself, it was really silly.

“But when the ball’s played into him, the angles he kicks off are phenomenal. I just tried to box some balls away and beat him out to a few others. You got to give him credit, he’s a class act and if he gets a sniff of it, it’s gone over the bar. If he was to go on and get Player of the Year, I certainly wouldn’t begrudge him. They play a very good system with him, keeping just two inside and giving him a lot of space to work with.”

Shields was assisted in the second-half by Eoin Cadogan in the inside rearguard and he paid tribute to dual star’s performance.

“He’s played minor and U21 football with Cork so coming into a match like that is no problem to him. He came on in the All-Ireland final last year as well. The biggest thing with Eoin is that he’s a perfect athlete and he’s the perfect match for Eoghan O’Gara. You’ve got to give him credit.”

Meanwhile, fellow defender Noel O’Leary insisted part of the motivation in the Cork squad for winning in the All-Ireland now is to reward the stalwarts in their line-up approaching the end of their careers.

“The likes of Anthony there and Graham and Quirky and these guys, they are well in their 30s and have given great service to Cork. For them alone we would be very conscious (of what winning the All-Ireland would mean). It would be an unbelievable thing. Winning an All-Ireland is every man’s dream and that is why we play. That was our goal at the start of the year to make the All-Ireland final and atone for last year.

“But there’s no point in getting carried away, we have a lot of work ahead of us. That game is over. There was a lot we would be unhappy with today. Our work rate was not up to scratch. But the one thing we would be happy with was that we stuck in there and had the battling qualities to pull it out of the fire.

“People will be on about Kerry and Tyrone being out of the competition but, look, Kildare and Down are no bad teams. You are not going to get to an All-Ireland final as a bad team. We are going to go into it the same way whether it was Kerry in an All-Ireland final or Tyrone or Kildare or Down or whoever. We have to approach it the same way.”