Paddy O'Shea: Keith Ricken must be given time to get his 'methods across'

There was a “fantastic buzz” within the St Vincent’s club when news broke Keith Ricken had been handed the reins, says Paddy O'Shea

Former Cork goalkeeper Paddy O’Shea has said his fellow St Vincent’s club man Keith Ricken “is the answer” to improving Cork football fortunes, but insisted the new senior manager must be left in the post for longer than the two-year term he has been given.

O’Shea said there was a “fantastic buzz” within the St Vincent’s club on the northside of Cork city when news broke on Wednesday lunchtime that one of their own had been handed the reins of the Cork senior football team.

The 2010 All-Ireland medallist was confident Ricken would emerge as the preferred choice of the five-man selection committee, with his hope now being that the new manager is given adequate time to lift the county from its current middle-of-the-road standing.

“He has a huge job on his hands. The last few years haven’t been great so there is massive pressure,” said O’Shea.

“I don’t think he is under any illusions. He’ll deal with the pressure fine because he is strong enough to float his own boat and go his own road. Keith will be Keith at the end of the day, no matter what.

“110% he is the right man for the job. He is the answer. I hope he gets the time. It is not a short fix, definitely. I hope people’s expectations aren’t that in 12 months time or even in 18 or 24 months time that Cork are challenging for All-Irelands because that might be unrealistic. If it happens, it is a bonus and it is the icing on the cake, but I genuinely hope he gets the time — three, four, five years even, to get his methods across.”

O’Shea won three county football medals under Ricken, describing how he is far more than simply a manager.

“Anywhere he has been he has had success, starting out with my own minor team in 1998. We wouldn’t have been anywhere near favourites to win the premier minor county. Even to progress out of the city division, you would have had Douglas, Nemo, and the Barrs. But we won the city and the county.

“Keith was no more than 28 at the time, a very young manager. Plus, he had taken a team from an area where there are social problems and all that kind of stuff, which makes the job even harder and cements the fact that Keith isn’t just a manager, he takes a person-centred approach to management and focuses on the person behind the player.

“That started back in 1998 with us, probably unknownst to himself really at that stage. He took a group of young fellas who could have gone down other roads in the area we are from and at that young age you are kinda at a crossroads anyway in terms of where you are going to go in the future. He was somebody we looked up to, he was like a father figure.

“Away from the pitch, if any of us did anything untoward, he’d be on our case. He’d always demand you be a good person, whether it was on the field or outside the field.

“Another big thing with him is he pushes his training sessions to be of championship standard and intensity. Mentally and physically, he will test you. One minute he can make you feel like telling him where to go and storm out of a training session, and the next minute he’d inspire you to run through a wall for him.

“He has a very good way of preparing players in training so that when it comes to the big game and the pressure situation, it is not a new feeling to you because he has put you in those kinds of situations in training.”

Cork County Board chairman Marc Sheehan yesterday told the Irish Examiner he believes Ricken and his management team are “the right group” to return Cork to football’s “upper echelons”.

“They have a big job of work ahead. We feel they are the right group to do that, with Keith as manager, John Cleary as coach, and all the selectors,” said Sheehan, who sat on the five-man selection committee.

“It was a competitive process because the people who came forward had a vision, they had a plan, and they had very strong views. It was a rigorous process too because, from our point of view, we also have a clear vision and pathway that we want to see, building on minor and U20 success in recent years, and wanting to get Cork back into the upper echelons again of competitive senior inter-county football.”

For those unsuccessful in the race to succeed Ronan McCarthy, Sheehan said they are “very, very fine people and will have a lot to contribute in the short term to Cork football”.