The big interview with Kevin O'Donovan: 'Nothing will fill Páirc Uí Chaoimh faster than a winning Cork team’

Four years ago Kieran Shannon met Kevin O’Donovan in his final months as an outgoing coaching officer of Cork County Board in which he outlined his hopes for the county. Now he’s CEO of Cork GAA. This week they again met to discuss what has happened since 2017 and where Cork GAA is now

Kevin O'Donovan: 'Nothing will fill Páirc Ui Chaoimh faster than a winning Cork team’. Picture: Eóin Noonan/Sportsfile

KIERAN SHANNON : When we last met four years ago, after Cork had won the 2017 Munster Championship but before they played and lost to Waterford in the All-Ireland semi-final, you talked about how the team’s run had lifted spirits in the county. ‘It’s more than the fella walking down the road with his hurley. It’s the conversation, the positivity, people wanting to get involved. It feels like we’ve been living in Kilkenny the last month.’ Where and what has this summer felt like?

Kevin O’Donovan: It’s been really exciting. My first instinct if anyone asks me what is it I’ll remember most about this summer, I tell them it’ll be of my first time seeing this [underage] player or that player or that player stepping up to the mark, fully-grown men, with a mad desire to play for Cork, and you said to yourself, ‘Wow, I haven’t seen that in a while.’ You’d have seen it with that minor hurling team of ’94-95 with Seán Óg [Ó hAilpín], Joe Deane and those lads: that there was something about that group that they weren’t going to finish as just minors. You’d have said the same about various underage teams in other counties. And I see that in a good few of the guys around now.