Niall O'Leary: 'I prefer to go in there more relaxed and see what happens on the day'

TAKE IT AS IT IS: Cork Senior Hurling press night at SuperValu Pairc Ui Chaoimh. Picture: Jim Coughlan.

Whoever Niall O’Leary is assigned to on Sunday won’t prey on his thoughts.

The likelihood he will asked to tag either Aidan McCarthy or Mark Rodgers, two players he has marked over these past couple of seasons, but it’s not in his nature to study them intently.

No, the Castlelyons man comes from the Wayne Sherlock school of defending: worry about yourself and the rest will fall into place. “With the way it is these days, you know exactly what you’re coming up against. You see enough of them throughout the year that you know what they’re like.

“It’s not something in my own game, that I like doing a lot of research into fellas. I kind of take it as it is, really. The more you watch a fella, the more you think he’s going to be very good. I don’t know, I prefer to go in there more relaxed and see what happens on the day.” 

O’Leary laughs that the duty of taking up the retreating inside forward, often given to him, is considered the prized responsibility among the Cork full-backs. “Myself, Seán (O’Donoghue) and Eoin (Downey), there’d be a lot of fighting for who gets that role on matchday, it’s maybe seen as the easier role in the full-back line, that you’re getting out of danger! You’re not in the last line of defence.

“I do get to enjoy it a bit more, you have a bit more freedom and a chance to get on a lot more ball. It’s easier maybe than being stuck inside on a man, I don’t know, but, again, you have to be able to play anywhere when you’re playing inside there. I got caught to play inside there a couple of times this year, too; it all depends on the day, really.” 

The night before the All-Ireland semi-final against Limerick, O’Leary shared a hotel room with goalkeeper Patrick Collins. If he thought he was laidback, Collins was on another level. “Pa did a lot of sleeping before the Limerick game, I didn’t think he’d wake up at all! In fairness to him, he was brilliant.” 

Collins’ determination to get the ball out quickly after a wide forces the likes of O’Leary, Downey and O’Donoghue to get out the field as soon as possible but it’s working for Cork. “It is tough, I suppose. These kind of fast-tempo puck-outs are a huge part of the game now. It's something we practise in training a lot, just getting out in time.

“There are times when you're after running back and you're struggling to get back out again, but it's such a big part of our game and we're getting good scores from it and different things like that so you're really trying to get out in time for them."

Just as they did against Limerick, Cork will gather together before throw-in and breathe. “There wasn’t a whole pile of talking, really. It was more to take a few breaths to get back down to earth, more than anything.

“It’s something we’ve been doing all year. (Performance coach) Gary Keegan has done a lot of work, this year and last year, on different breathing practices that we’ve brought into our game to bring us back down to earth. It’s just a reset, really, to relax a fella before going out.

"He (Keegan) is brilliant, to be honest. It's great to have a fella like that on board who's been at such a high level with the Irish rugby team and we get to take things from him as well. He's done great work with us over the last couple of years.

“He's a busy man. I suppose we don't get to see him as regularly as we might want to, but he's always there on the phone. There are text messages coming in maybe once or twice a day from him about different things that we need to do. He's brilliant."

Teaching PE and history in St Colman’s College, O’Leary is keeping himself occupied in the build-up with work on the farm at home. He feels he and the others involved in the 2021 final will benefit from that experience as difficult as it was.

“I think even on the parade around the field, a lot of us in the semi-final (v Limerick) just kept the head down and stayed concentrating on what the task was ahead. In ’21, a lot of fellas were doing a lot of looking around and maybe it created a lot of nerves on the day, I don’t know. I think we’ve definitely learned a lot since.”