Sheehan proves his versatility

Ciarán Sheehan was not named at number 6 for Cork last night, nor is he likely to see time at centre-back against Kildare in Sunday’s All-Ireland quarter-final.

But the possibility of him marshalling the Rebel defence at some point in the future is not as remote as might be thought.

Sheehan’s club Éire Óg have a surfeit of attacking options, with Cork colleague Daniel Goulding and county U21 players Kevin Hallissey and John Dineen also in situ, so he was selected there for the club’s County IFC first-round clash with Cloyne in May.

He did well there, and the experiment has been carried as far as Cork intra-squad games at Páirc Uí Chaoimh. While admitting the move would take some adapting to, he is not totally averse to it.

“I tried it out with the club a couple of times this year,” he says.

“It was something different for me, coming back from injury. Having played centre-forward myself helped me in anticipating what runs a forward would make when I’m marking them at centre-back.

“It’s a benefit to see both positions, but I’m not sure I am up to the level of playing there at inter-county yet. It’s something I’d like to do and I enjoyed it, but it’ll take a while, there’s a defensive side to it that I’d need to work on.

“I would have played in the position a few times in hurling, but this year was the first time in football. We’d have a lot of good firepower with the club in attack with Goulding, Hallissey and John Dineen, so I was brought back to bring some ball-carrying to it.”

Regardless of the position, though, Sheehan is just glad to be back playing football, having missed the latter part of last year, including the All-Ireland quarter-final defeat by Mayo, after suffering a cruciate ligament injury in the Munster final defeat by Kerry.

Recovery was slow and arduous, but he did not let it get him down.

“Yeah, it was a long road back,” he says. “In a sense it helped me as I got to see things from a different angle. You could see things in training and games that you might not have noticed before when you were playing.

“The moment I did it, I tried to take as many positives as I could and didn’t want any negatives to come into it. I tried to get as much info as I could to improve myself as a player. It has been a help. I got myself into as good physical shape as I could.”

Therefore, winning the man of the match award in this year’s provincial decider helped to exorcise any demons from 12 months before.

“Yeah, it was a brilliant experience and meant a lot to me,” Sheehan says. “I’d never won a Munster senior medal and, to be honest, there was almost tears of joy afterwards. It was a big turnaround personally.

“It’s had a huge impact on me as a player. I was only thinking that this time last year I was crocked up on bed. It’s not a nice place to be when you’re so used to playing the whole time. But it’s turned around now and I’m enjoying it. Long may it continue.”

Winning Munster meant the necessary evil of a four-week layoff for Cork, three of them without the knowledge of who their opponents would be. Sheehan is happy with how the break has been managed, however.

“We’ve been doing a lot of work amongst ourselves, our A v B games have been good and we’ve brought in a few of the U21s to improve the competition and strength of the panel. We want to keep training as competitive as possible and at a good level. There were club games in the mix so you had to allow fellas have rest and recovery as well.

“It was important for us to peak as well as we can.”

The task now is to peak against the Lilywhites. While Sheehan has never played against them at senior level, he does have some prior experience and is aware of the threat they possess.

“At U21 level we played a couple challenge games, going up the country to play them,” he says. “They were strong physical teams and some of them will now be drafted into the senior squad. Their attacking football is very good I think, their ability to drop a man back and then attack at speed is very impressive.

“They’re strong all over the pitch and I thought their half-forward line brought a lot to the game working around the pitch. From watching them recently, I’ve noticed the fluency of their play is really good.

“Ever since McGeeney took over, you can see their fitness levels have changed. Their ability to go up and down the pitch is phenomenal.

“We hope we can match them in that regard.”