For the love of the game

Put it to Fintan Goold that a Munster medal has been devalued in recent years and the answer you get provides an insight into both his attitude and appreciation of history.

Though the Macroom man started provincial finals as a teenager in 2005 and ’06, he has not done so since. He offers the tale of one of the town’s most famous sons, the late Tom Creedon, to illustrate just what winning another medal would mean.

“My dad would have played with Tom for Macroom for many years,” Goold said, “and he played for eight years starting on the Cork team and never won a Munster medal.

“He joined the panel at the start of Kerry’s golden era and the year he died [1983] was when Cork won it again. It just shows you, I certainly wouldn’t be turning my nose up at a Munster championship medal.”

In that regard, it is unfortunate on Goold that such a fruitful league campaign failed to yield its true rewards as he suffered a foot infection the day before the Munster semi-final against Kerry, forcing his withdrawal.

Fully recovered from that setback, he was not named in the starting 15 for tomorrow’s final against Clare. Given Cork’s propensity for late changes he may yet be in situ for throw-in, but he acknowledges it is disappointing to be derailed by something so unusual.

“The Saturday morning before the game, I woke with a swollen foot and felt kind of sick for the day,” he said.

“I kind of knew by that evening that I’d be out so I told Conor. It cleared up fine with the antibiotics, I’m back training now no problems.

“It was unfortunate. You spend the whole season trying to prepare yourself physically, protecting quads and hamstrings, to be struck down with a rare thing like an infection is disappointing.”

In a squad with depth as strong as Cork have, the only way to ensure a regular spot is through consistent performances. Throughout the spring Goold did that as he made the number 10 his own, his height and ball-winning skills making him an auxiliary midfielder while he was also able to contribute two or three points.

If could be a case of having to fight to regain that berth, but he is level-headed enough to know what the task entails.

“What do you do? You have to focus on what you can do, that’s getting yourself right mentally and physically, when you’re given an opportunity that’s the big thing.

“Particularly over the past few campaigns I’ve taken the league very serious, as when you are a regular maybe it’s a bit easier to have an off-day or two but when you’re trying to break in, every league game is important.

“When I was younger things maybe didn’t go for me and you’d have regrets and so on, but you’ve got to look at it after and assess what you did well and what you didn’t do well and try to improve.

“You take on board criticism from management and so on and try and be a better player for it. I’m not under any illusions, you know yourself when you play well and when you don’t, a lot of the time you don’t need anybody else to tell you.”

As such strong favourites tomorrow, Cork know that complacency cannot be entertained. In Goold’s view, there are enough lessons to learn from, with the emphasis on getting the basics right.

“You really just have to focus on yourself, it’s all down to attitude,” he said.

“People expect you to win, and you’ve got to deal with that, but the one thing we have realised throughout the league is that we’ve mixed the very good with the very bad.

“If you analyse the days when we were bad, a lot of it was just down to poor attitude and poor work rate. They are fundamental in the modern game, the way it’s so intense and so defensive and attacking has become so, so critical.

“They all follow on from having the right attitude and being fully focused and if enough players going into the game are not fully tuned in, that game can become very tough, very quickly.

“You’ve got to go in and take a ruthless attitude to it.”

A ruthless attitude is also what is needed when it comes to time management during the GAA season. Goold, an 11-handicapper since he was 15 (he claims to play closer to 22 now), has not played golf in three months, but he knows its side effect of playing at inter-county level.

“I think that some people make it out like it’s some sort of chore. We all do this because we love doing it, it’s a fantastic opportunity.

“It can be difficult. There are nights and days when you’re tired and you’d like to skip training but they’re the nights when it’s most important to drag yourself out of that lethargic attitude.

“There are friends you don’t meet a whole lot socially at this time of year but I’m not complaining. I’ve a girlfriend as well who demands a bit of my time on Sundays too so it’s hard to fit it all in.”