Ian Maguire: 'It showed something that hasn’t been said a lot about Cork – heart and leadership'

Now the Rebels have a home preliminary quarter-final to look forward to against Roscommon on Saturday afternoon.

HEART AND LEADERSHIP: Ian Maguire of Cork in action against Matthew Ruane of Mayo. Photo by Eóin Noonan/Sportsfile

Inter-county players don’t come more up front and frank than Ian Maguire.

The Cork midfielder knows nothing other than to say it straight and tell it honestly, whether that be in good times or in bad.

And Maguire will be the first to admit that there have been far more bad days than good during his 10 seasons in red.

Relegation from Division 1. Relegation from Division 2. Hammerings aplenty from the neighbours across the border. Hammerings too from others up the country. Inconsistency and slippage. More steps backward than taken forward.

Against that background and decade of deflation for Cork football, Sunday’s stirring win over Mayo was an outlier. Besides Kerry, it was the first Division 1 team Cork had scalped in championship since the county’s All-Ireland winning campaign of 2010.

“I think it showed something that hasn’t been said a lot about Cork – it showed heart and it showed leadership,” said the midfielder of Sunday’s come-from-behind spectacular.

As James Horan noted on these pages on Monday, Maguire grafted ferociously at the Gaelic Grounds. As we noted at the outset, he’s been grafting for a decade.

Sunday was stirring. Sunday was also special. Small payback for staying the course and sustaining the faith.

“Brian Cuthbert gave me an opportunity in 2014. To be honest, we threw that game [quarter-final v Mayo] away. That was a tough loss at the end of a run of a quality team. That was my first year with Cork so, nine years later, to get a result like that means a lot.

Cork's Ian Maguire with Sam Callinan of Mayo.

“Obviously, there’s nothing won in terms of trophies, but we won a bit of respect for ourselves, a bit of confidence and a bit of connectivity with the fans as well. That’s very important to us because we love playing football, we’re here representing our families and our communities, and we need that connectivity back.”

There’s a wonderful opportunity to further re-establish that connection this Saturday. An All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final at Páirc Uí Chaoimh. An opportunity on home soil to back up and build upon the leadership, character, and confidence shown against the All-Ireland and League champions respectively over the past fortnight.

Cork's opening group fixture against Louth was the one that was supposed to define their summer. Yours truly was among the cohort driving that narrative. Instead, it is how they fronted up against Kerry and figured Mayo out that has returned a great deal of respect to the Cork football corner.

“We’ve a home qualifier, which is brilliant – I actually think that’s a great stipulation – and we need to build on this. These are the games we have to start proving that we’re in contention,” the 29-year-old continued.

“We earned that right on Sunday but now we have to prove our worth again. We’re really looking forward to it. It’s been an unbelievable season so far, very enjoyable. There have been a lot of tough days for the likes of Brian Hurley, Johnno [O’Rourke], Ruairí Deane, [Brian O’] Driscoll but Sunday wasn’t one of them and we have to build on it.”

The most recent of those chastening afternoons came away to Clare in the first round of Munster only two months ago. That defeat and their act of self-sabotage against Meath in the opening round of the League are really the only two ink spills in a campaign that has come to be the county’s most consistent since, arguably, 2015.

And even that particular season was spoiled by their fourth-round qualifier no-show against Kildare.

“I think we showed a lot of consistency throughout the league. For us, the most disappointing thing about the Clare game was that we lacked leadership down the stretch – I was probably the main culprit – in a one-score game.

“I think we’ve shown it since. Maybe there were small parts of the Kerry game where we didn’t show it but overall, we have and the graph is continually going up.

“In the second half against Mayo, once we got momentum, I felt there was only going to be one winner. Shout out to Colm O’Callaghan, he made a super run after their goal and Sherlock showed great composure from the spot.

“It just shows what we’re about and we kicked on. Our turnovers and physicality were relentless, and we went after some of their key players and got some joy with it. We probably showed our quality with about ten left.”

Now with a spotlight back on them, can they keep showing it?