Ronan McCarthy: Cork’s young brigade filling void left by veteran exits

Cork manager Ronan McCarthy: ‘We had Ciarán, James Loughrey, Tom Clancy of Fermoy, and Paul Kerrigan, that type of player, stepping away, but I don’t think it’s had the impact it might have had previously.’ Picture: Daire Brennan/Sportsfile

Prioritising the development of the panel’s younger members means Cork football has been able to deal with the loss of so many experienced players over the past seven months, manager Ronan McCarthy has said.

Ciarán Sheehan’s injury-enforced retirement last month saw him become the fourth Cork footballer to step away from McCarthy’s panel since the close of the 2020 season.

Paul Kerrigan was first to depart, followed reluctantly by Tomás Clancy who, similar to Sheehan, has been plagued by injury in recent times. In between their respective injury-dictated retirements was that of James Loughrey, who signed off in April.

That’s a lot of experience and quality to lose in the space of seven months.

McCarthy said management’s “far-sighted” approach has meant the aforementioned losses haven’t been felt to the extent they might have been in years past.

“We had Ciarán, James Loughrey, Tom Clancy of Fermoy, and Paul Kerrigan, that type of player, stepping away, but I don’t think it’s had the impact it might have had previously,” the Cork manager remarked.

“In all those cases, if those players were willing to stay, they’d have stayed, and we’d have been glad to have them, but the other side of it is we have, as we’ve been going along, developing the panel. So, when a guy like James Loughrey, for example, steps away, you have a Maurice Shanley there, you have a Daniel O’Mahony who has come through the league, and you have Brian Murphy who is training very well with us at the moment.

“You are always looking to make sure that you don’t have a scenario — and maybe in Cork we did in the past — where a player left and you are waiting three or four years to actually develop the next player to fill that space.

We have been quite far-sighted in the way we have tried to develop the panel. So while we are sorry to lose those servants — and they have all been tremendous servants of Cork football and tremendous servants at difficult times for Cork football — it is next man up.”

Limerick represent Cork’s first championship hurdle this Saturday at LIT Gaelic Grounds (3pm).

The Treatymen’s 4-18 to 0-12 annihilation of Waterford in the Munster quarter-final turned many a head as to Limerick’s rising graph.

McCarthy, for his part, declared himself long aware of the progress being made by Billy Lee’s side. Indeed, he commented that anyone only noticing Limerick now have “very short memories”.

“Limerick beat us last year in the McGrath Cup final and were well-deserving, so we didn’t need their quarter-final to know that this is going to be a difficult game for us. Billy Lee has done a fantastic job with them, like other managers in Munster. Colm Collins, David Power have done great jobs and Limerick are no different.”

No question but Cork will need to be tighter at the back than they were when conceding 0-25 to Westmeath in their Division 2 relegation semi-final win. However, the manager didn’t go along with the view that the game exposed “defensive frailties” in the Cork rearguard, as 2010 All-Ireland winner Patrick Kelly put it on the Irish Examiner GAA podcast the week after the game.

“I don’t know about defenders being brushed aside, but we were open at times. It wasn’t even the 25 points. While we didn’t concede a goal, we were open to goal chances. It’s something we’ll focus on and try to rectify.”