High-flying Cadogans staying grounded
But it’s not that he worries about them. He does his duty and reminds the other dual player in the Douglas family of the potential pitfalls, but he describes Alan as being “a bit more straight-laced and screwed on for his game than me”.
Arguably the find of the senior hurlers’ league campaign, Cadogan points to the times when he brought Alan along to ball alleys to train with him, Dónal Óg Cusack and John Gardiner. “He has been in that type of environment and I think it is after serving him well to be around those types of guys.”
But it’s with the county’s U21 footballers where he is shining brightly now. “He’s after being brought into the hurling squad but he is playing better football at the moment.
“Look, he has his feet on the ground. He knows himself his priority is U21 and he is not looking past that. At that age you have to be realistic and your own grade means the most to you and whatever else happens, happens.
“He was out last Wednesday against Tipp (Munster U21), he was out again Saturday in a city final against Nemo and they were beaten after extra-time. So back out again, a bit of rest last (Tuesday) night and then hopefully fresh for Saturday.
“Things seem to be going very well but I am quick to assure him that while you’re on the crest of a wave and things are going well, you (media) guys and every supporter will be very quick to bring you back down and you’ll get the curly finger after 20 minutes when things aren’t going to plan. He is very realistic.”
As Cork square off with Roscommon, Alan will recall how another fancied U21 side were disappointed by Galway in last year’s final and Cadogan has his own hard luck tale.
“I remember, 2005 I think it was, we were going particularly well going into an All-Ireland semi-final against Galway. But before we blinked Michael Meehan and Sean Armstrong had eight points on the board and we had one. We were saying ‘what’s after happening?’.
“So there is that element that things mightn’t go to plan for guys. What I would be confident of is that there is an awful lot of experienced guys in that U21 squad that have been brought into a senior environment where there are high expectations of them taking the right options and being able to cope with that kind of pressure.”
Opel ambassador Cadogan himself is on the mend and said he would have been fit for a league final had Cork beaten Dublin last Sunday.
“I tweaked a hammer against Mayo. I have never pulled a hamstring in my life so I actually didn’t know what was after happening. So I came off, got right in 10 days, played against Tyrone and it just pulled again. So I have been working very hard with the physios, both football and hurling, over the last two weeks.”
Cadogan isn’t too perturbed by the loss to Dublin coming at the end of what was a pleasing league campaign.
“At the start of the league a lot of people would have said that staying up would have been a positive with all the guys who had left (the panel).”
His standards are higher, though. “I never like the word ‘transition’ because there’s always expectation. If I’m going out to play, I’m going out to win regardless of whether I’m there six months, 10 years, five years, it doesn’t really matter. I want to go out to win. I don’t really care about transition. I don’t really care about finding our feet. We’re there because we’re good enough to represent our county and we have an expectation among ourselves that if we keep working on the basic skills of the game... we’re all realistic that Dublin are the benchmark.”
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