Ronan McCarthy: 'If I don’t believe this team can win an All-Ireland in the next two years, what am I doing here?'
Ronan McCarthy: 'You need time with teams - and to be fair the Cork County Board afford you that - but this is done against a slightly hysterical background in terms of extremes of despair.'
Seldom has soaring expectation been as coldly cut at the knees as in the final minutes of November’s Munster football final. Here was Cork, a Kerry Championship scalp in the plus column, blowing up again against Tipperary with the road to Croke Park stretching out before them.
Was it worth beating Kerry at all, at all?
“You know what the biggest challenge of this thing is,” Cork’s manager Ronan McCarthy begins, in a manner indicating he is ready to answer himself.
“Hysteria”.
As in?
“The hysterical reaction to defeats and setbacks. Success isn’t linear, nor is learning, and there are bumps along the road. And there will be more, so (Cork) people should buckle up. But in the end, if you come out the other side as a top team competing for titles then it will have been worth the journey.”
McCarthy’s further down the road than most of the footballers he will manage for at least the next two seasons. All told, between selector and bainisteoir, 2021 will be his seventh season in a Cork senior management team.
Triumph, disaster? Imposters both.
“If Tipp had beaten Kerry in a Munster semi-final and we had beaten Tipp in the final, what judgement would people make of us then? I look at it over three seasons, and by any objective assessment we have improved. So while the Tipp game was a disappointment, it was not a setback. I am surprised people were surprised (that Tipperary won).
Of course, he understands the nature of fandom and the social media vehicles that drive it. Doesn’t mean you have to subscribe, he says. “Trying to get people to take an overview of the development of a team and a group of players is difficult these days. This is a across the board. Look at Arteta at Arsenal, he going to be sacked, three matches later they’re eyeing Europe and it’s now Frank Lampard at Chelsea on the brink. It’s just ridiculous.
"You need time with teams - and to be fair the Cork County Board afford you that - but this is done against a slightly hysterical background in terms of extremes of despair.
“Stand back in the cold light of day any objective analysis would say that this team is going in the right direction – be that with me or someone else. Age wise, there’s a good mix in the panel, a lot of good players coming through, a top class set up in relation to coaching and S&C. I’d prefer if people looked at that and took Ronan McCarthy out of it. They might see this is going in the right direction even if there are setbacks along the way.”
When credit and debit columns are tallied, it’s well to stir into the mix that Cork won promotion to Division Two without dropping a point and beat “the second-best team in the country” in Championship.
So where stands McCarthy’s men ahead of 2021, whatever it brings. Are they top eight?
“Does it matter where I rate Cork?” he protests. “If you ask, I don’t think it’s unfair to say we are a top 8-10 team, but that comes back to the hysteria and the goldfish memory people have. Liverpool beat Palace 7-0 away, then drew at home to West Brom who lost 5-0 at home to Leeds.”
So?
“The point is, you must go out and perform every time you play and there are very few teams in any sport that can win when they don’t play to their ability.
“Do I think this group can go on and consistently challenge the top football teams in the country and beat them? All the ingredients are there for us to do that. The signs are that is the direction we are heading.”
Once the two other parties in the agreement were on board – the players and the Board – McCarthy says he had very little hesitation in giving it two more years in charge.
Are we on an upward trajectory? Tick.
Can we go on and improve a level again? Tick.
Can we add a few bits to the mix to do so? Tick.
“It took me as long to get over the Tipperary defeat as it did the win over Kerry. What you learn as you get older is you achieve little from wallowing. That was a huge disappointment, don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to pretend it didn’t matter.
"The real loss was the opportunity to play another top four team (Mayo) in Croke Park in an All-Ireland semi-final. That was a huge miss in terms of the development of the team.
“We are trying to develop a team to go on and win an All-Ireland – that’s what we are talking about here. Can we get this group of Cork players to win an All-Ireland in the next couple of years? Whether we won Munster or not, we need to be playing in Croke Park regularly.
"We benefitted from the Super 8s last year, and a semi-final with Mayo would have been another step along the road. Then you get to a point where it becomes familiar, expected, regular. If I don’t believe this team can win an All-Ireland in the next two years, what am I doing here? I have talked about patience from supporters, but at the end of a five-year period in charge, if you haven’t done it, then that’s that, isn’t it?
"You can’t have it both ways - talking about the quality of the panel and the strength in depth and then not being able to achieve what you set out to after five years. Then it’s time so to hand over to someone else.”
McCarthy, a refreshingly honest sort, will look to freshen up the playing group to some degree, but he knows the likes of Liam O’Donovan, Ciarán Sheehan and Kevin Crowley will add quality when they return after injury and surgery.
The manager, in announcing his intention to remain until 2022, also took the moment to add some fresh thinking to the backroom group.
Kieran Shannon, of this parish, will join the set-up as performance coach, having already worked in this area of sports psychology/performance coaching with Mayo and Fermanagh. With Gary O’Halloran stepping aside for non-footballing reasons, McCarthy has added interesting personalities as selectors in John Hayes and Bobbie Dwyer.
“John Hayes was a gem of a player, a thoughtful footballer who used his brain on the field, and he will bring a lot - to our forwards in particular. He is also a very strong character, that’s what you want, someone who will challenge the players. Bobbie had great success with the Cork minors, and anyone who knows him is aware of his extraordinary attention to detail in terms of the prep of his teams. I’m very happy with that group.”
Not to mention the retention of coach Cian O’Neill, who lost months of face-to-face work (his forte) with the players in 2020, and the S&C coach Kevin Smith, who made a considerable impression on management and the players, last season.
“You sit down and look to see how we can improve the set-up, make it more professional. Kieran (Shannon) is a fantastic addition, highly experienced, knows the inter county scene well, and is a Cork man, which also helps.”
The likes of Niall Hartnett (Douglas, younger brother of midfielder Brian), Daniel O’Mahony (Knocknagree, All-Ireland U20 winner at full-back), and (Nemo Rangers’) Mark Cronin will be added to the official panel for the Allianz League. They were drafted in last September as extended members of the group and McCarthy hopes they continue their development through the spring.
“The key thing is to give guys time. Just as managers need time, so do players. We try to give a guy two seasons. The day of giving him a couple of challenge matches and then out the door, never to be seen again, is gone. You make a considered judgement and see if he is worth investing a couple of years in.
"Because it’s inter-county U20 now, and not U21, they have a season less done in terms of development. But the other end of that stick is you don’t want guys sitting on a panel for 4-5 years and not making the breakthrough. There’s a balance there.”
McCarthy says exciting wing back Liam O’Donovan from Clonakilty won’t return for the League but should be ready by April. Ciarán Sheehan should see League game time before that, while Kevin Crowley is back ready for full training after an extended absence through injury. Keeper Mark White has re-joined the group after a season out.
McCarthy isn’t wrong. On paper, Cork have options and good ones. Sean Meehan might well have been the find of 2020 to most people, certainly anyone outside the U20 All-Ireland-winning bubble of 2019. He was handed a Sean O’Shea-shaped Championship debut against Kerry and did every bit as well as Maurice Shanley did on David Clifford.
McCarthy isn’t individualising though. “Let’s be patient with these guys. They are going to have bumps in the road, dips in form, you want people to be patient and realistic.”
And perhaps park the hysteria.
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