Is he Cork or Kerry? John Egan finally calls it  

John Egan wearing a Bishopstown GAA jersey. Photo: Bishopstown GAA Twitter

Ireland soccer international John Egan has finally climbed off the fence on his personal Cork-Kerry debate.

Ahead of this Sunday’s Munster semi-final meeting, Egan was a guest on Sky Sports’ GAA show 'Inside the Game'.

Son of the great six-time All-Ireland winner John Senior, but brought up in Cork where he played GAA with Bishopstown, Egan has been entitled to cling onto divided loyalties over the years.

In an interview with Liam Mackey for the Irish Examiner last year, Egan admitted he'd have faced some tricky decisions if he'd followed in his father's footsteps rather than pursue a career in professional soccer.

“I’ve always thought that if I’d stayed at home I probably would have played Gaelic football or hurling, whichever one I enjoyed more and I would have given everything to play for the county,” he said.

“But I don’t know if I would have played hurling for Cork or football for Kerry. I don’t think I would have been allowed play football for Cork! That was a big debate — so that was probably one of the big reasons I got on a plane."

But this week, Inside the Game host Brian Carney pressed the Sheffield United defender for a definitive answer: Is he a Kerryman or a Corkman?

"There's no such thing as both," Egan laughed. “I'd say I'm a Kerryman born and raised in Cork. I grew up in Cork, loved living in Cork, but when it came to Gaelic football, I've been Kerry mad since day one, obviously from my Mom and Dad.

“It's a weird one. Every time someone brings it up, they say 'stop sitting on the fence, you're either Cork or Kerry'. But it's ok to be both in my situation.” 

But Carney wasn’t letting him wriggle out of things that diplomatically, forcing Egan to at least nail his colours to the mast for Sunday’s game.

"For this Sunday at 4pm, I'm a Kerryman, I'd say. There'd be trouble in my household if I had a Cork jersey on Sunday at four o’clock.”