Pat Ryan’s Cork hurling management team revealed

RECRUITING: Pat Ryan. Picture: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

New Cork hurling manager Pat Ryan’s backroom team were announced and ratified at the meeting of the Cork County Board tonight. 

Chairman, Marc Sheehan, advised the meeting that Fergal Condon of Aghada, Wayne Sherlock of Blackrock, Donal O’Mahony of Bishopstown and Brendan Coleman of Youghal will be Ryan’s selectors. All men were involved with Ryan in his successful tenure as U-20 boss where back-to-back All-Ireland titles were secured.

Donal O’Rourke of Cappoquin has also come on board as a coach. O’Rourke has been involved with Erin’s Own in recent times while also being coach to the Galway camogie team. O’Mahony’s ascension to the senior set-up creates a vacancy at U-20 level. Marc Sheehan, Pat Horgan, Kevin O’Donovan, Eoin O’Connor and Michael O’Mahony will be in charge of the appointment.

John Cleary was also ratified as Cork senior football manager on a three-year term after Keith Ricken was forced to step aside. Sheehan paid tribute to Ricken and wished him good health while hailing Cleary’s excellent record. His selectors will be announced at the next meeting.

Sheehan wished the Cork camogie teams the very best of luck in this weekend’s All-Ireland finals while secretary, Kevin O’Donovan, told the meeting how this Sunday’s games in the Co-op Superstores hurling championships have been moved so as to not clash with the games in Croke Park. The vast majority of games have been moved to 2:00 pm while the double header in Páirc Úi Rinn in the PSHC Bishopstown will face Glen Rovers at 1:00pm and Erin’s Own will take on Na Piarsaigh at 3:00pm.

O’Donovan regretted that games will still be clashing with the All-Ireland Intermediate final, but with thirteen games on Sunday’s schedule there was only so much that could be done. He also praised all of the clubs and venues involved in how proactive they were in altering the fixtures.

There was also positive news on the commercial front with Co-op Superstores signing up for another three years as sponsors of the hurling championships at an enhanced rate. Bons Secours have renewed their sponsorship of the football championships for another year while O’Donovan praised the value in a subscription to Irish Examiner’s streaming service.

The next event of the One Cork group was also announced. On October 27th there will be a Golf Classic at the prestigious Old Head of Kinsale Golf Course. The event will be sponsored by the O’Flynn Group and the Amarenco Group while the Irish Examiner will be the official media partners.

There was general frustration over Croke Park’s decision to cancel the proposed Special Congress in relation to the future of the underage grades. The shifting of minor to U-17 and U-21 to U-20 with the creation of the U-19 grade in local GAA has been the subject of much criticism over the past few years.

Vice-chairman of the board, Pat Horgan, explained how the U-19 grade has been the subject of much effort but it has proved very difficult to run due to the overlap with adult teams. The grade simply doesn’t work as there isn’t enough months in the year. As a result of the cancellation of the Special Congress, there will be no alteration to the status-quo until 2024.

Horgan said that Cork needs to lead on this matter and to come up with “Cork solution” as it can’t be left to Croke Park. One possibility, that will be discussed at the next meeting, is that Cork reverts to an U-18 competition with eighteen-year-olds decoupled from the top five grades while being available to play in the grades below that so as to minimise the impact on a club’s ability to field adult teams.