The full Pat Ryan interview: 'The past, the future, the pain, the pride, the homecoming and 'absolute garbage'
Pat Ryan: 'It's on to the next man now to see if he can bring back Liam MacCarthy. It's too long a time.'
BY THE END, Pat Ryan had given what he could. Recent breaks with his wife Trish and three children to Dingle and Salou recharged the batteries somewhat but ultimately he had to say “no” to the offer of another three-year term.
It had nothing to do with his health, which he reports as good – the Sarsfields man was diagnosed with leukemia in 2018. If there was anything about being asked to make changes to his management team, he is too polite to say.
No, in an extensive interview with the he makes it clear that he did not have the required energy levels to continue in hurling’s biggest position.
You clearly deliberated on this decision but a few hours after the announcement, does it sit well with you?
To be honest with you, it sits very well with me. Look, it's been a fantastic kind of three years in one way, and a disappointing three years in another way. But I've been involved for seven out of the last 10 years with Cork, two years with Kieran Kingston. Then I was involved in setting up the new Cork championship with Ronan Dwane and Kevin O'Donovan and then took the 20s. But, I've had great times along the way, great memories, great friendships, met lifelong friends and recreated with lifelong friends. And we had a lot of success, a lot of good things, a lot of lows, which is what sport is about. And we came back from lows. The county board wanted me to stay on for another three years. And to be honest, because it's probably the end of the cycle and you're moving on and you need to see if you can move it on to the next level or do different things, I just felt that it was the right time for me from what has been kind of a really tough 2025. I just need a break, really, to kind of refresh and see where things will go. Refresh and spend some time with family and then kind of see what happens going forward.
: You were carrying something the whole year. I’m sure the memory of your late brother Ray was close to you all the while but you had to job to do.
: I got great support from everyone involved, and look, unbelievable support from the outside public, from random people coming up to me, to people sending me cards and messages, and some of the lovely stuff even that I got after a disappointing All-Ireland final. It’s been a tough time for everyone. And look, it's kind of harder when you're in the middle of the public eye and you have to keep kind of driving on because you're kind of trying to make sure that nothing gets in the way of the preparation and the dreams and aspirations of the players that you're involved with.
: Winning two out of three competitions this year, a first league title since 1998 and breaking Limerick’s stranglehold of the All-Ireland final, were great feathers in your cap but you would agree you fell short of your objectives?
: Looking back, we can say we did an awful lot of things and we had a lot of momentum and there was a huge following coming after us and there was a lot of excitement around Cork about hurling again, and that's probably the real part that I get kind of good enjoyment out of. That and a lot of the players developed and we brought players through. Fellas performed really, really high. When we took over the job three years ago, the green machine was what it was, and, in fairness, we were probably the one team that could compete with them the most, and fortunately, some days we wounded them, but to be honest, every time we wounded them, they took an ounce of flesh with us as well, and it always left a mark on us in those games. That’s something we can proud of, that we were able to go toe-to-toe with probably the best team that's ever lived, but unfortunately, it didn't materialise in what was our main aim all the time, which was to win the All-Ireland.
: You mentioned the importance of loyalty in your statement. What did that relate to?
: It was probably a comment that somebody passed to me at one stage that my greatest achievement is that I'm loyal, but it's also my greatest weakness. It’s probably a comment that irks me, to be honest with you, because I would never look at it as a weakness. We had ups and downs during different seasons, whether it was ‘23, ‘24, ‘25, and if I go back to ‘24, when we lost to Waterford and lost to Clare, it was the loyalty that I had from my management group and my background team, from the players, to stick together, to be able to beat Limerick in that memorable game below in Páirc Uí Chaoimh and resurrect us. The same thing again this year, when Limerick beat us by 16 points. It would have been easy for everybody to throw the toys out of the pram, players, management, county board. Everyone to get on your back. Don't get me wrong, we deserved criticism, we got plenty of it, but it never came from within our group and that is what you need. We were then able to beat Waterford and qualify for a final which nobody lost that day. It went to penalties. Whether it is fair or not, we had the opportunity to give a better account of ourselves. You need everybody working towards the same thing and that is what I got.
: It would be hard to argue there wasn’t progress over the course of your three years. Would you agree?
: Even though I was involved with Kieran in ‘16, ‘17, as a coach, it’s totally different as team manager. Don't get me wrong, having a brilliant coach is hugely important but it's not to the same level of scrutiny or not to the same level of kind of extra stuff that's been pulled from you. In the first year, you learn a bit, you try and make as little mistakes as you can, and then you try and develop it in year two. Everybody kind of needs two years to kind of do it, but you have to be able to progress from year one to year two, year two to year three. It's kind of a moot point that we progressed this year. We ended up with two trophies, we had no trophies in 2024, but we had a more disappointing ending in ‘25 than we had in ‘24, and, look, I’ll leave it up to other fellas to say whether ‘25 was a progression. Kind of recommitting for three years, which is what would have been needed, wasn't the kind of situation that I could give the energy to at the moment.
: We scored 1-16 but, from my point of view, I felt our energy was down, I felt that we were in a good place, but Tipperary were very much in the game, kind of driving it. Obviously, they'd missed a couple of chances, but that happens when you're playing with a sweeper situation. But we were happy that we were kind of doing a lot of the damage in the middle third. But it was definitely very noticeable for us when we went in at half-time that our energy levels and our turnovers were way, way down. We were getting our scores, with Diarmaid [Healy] playing very well, Shane [Barrett] playing very well. We were turning over their ball with Niall [O’Leary] and with Rob [Downey] and with Ciarán [Joyce] winning those balls because some of their balls were coming in and we were breaking them out of it. But it was the fact that when we turned over their ball, they were tackling way harder than what we were. And when they were turning over our ball, they were coming out too easy and that was our major worry when we went in at half-time. We felt that we were doing well enough in what we wanted to do. And, look, you're talking about a really good team. They were really well prepared and we were in a good place. And, unfortunately, we went out in the second half and they got five opportunities. We got five opportunities. They took theirs and then, look, we gave away a poor goal and then gave away a penalty and the sending off. The disappointing thing was that it kind of got worse. Instead of maintaining the game and losing by seven or eight points, we ended up losing by 15 or 16. It was a hugely disappointing end when were in a good position.
: There were a couple of sliding door moments in that second half too with Darragh Fitzgibbon’s shot coming off the post, Rhy Shelly touching it down to the butt of the post and then John McGrath scoring a goal seconds later.
: Everything that could go wrong was going wrong. I think that would be doing an injustice to Tipperary. They were the ones that were driving the energy. They were the ones that were driving the tactical. They were the ones that were on the front foot. They were the ones that were driving the engagements. And look, at the end of the day, hurling is about those individual contests and those individual engagements. And they were winning them and we were losing them. It’s not abdicating responsibility. We were looking at what you do when you have a man sent off and unfortunately you were being beaten in every area. Once the goal went in after having a man sent off and the Tipperary crowd getting behind their team, that's the adrenaline lost.
: Was the decision to cancel the homecoming a difficult one?
: Well, to be honest, the decision with the homecoming was decided weeks previous Because, we got a lot of stick the year previous in that ‘oh, there's a homecoming organised already’, but unfortunately, (but in another way very fortunately with the crowd that we're bringing), you have to organise these things with the city council, with the guards and all that. And that has to be discussed before. Like, when we had qualified out of Munster, that was actually the first question I was asked by the county board. ‘If we do get to an All-Ireland final, are we having a dinner? Are we having a homecoming?’ There was probably a bit of stick afterwards. It was agreed between the county board and myself, not the players, no conjunction with the players, that if we win, of course, you'll have a homecoming. If not, why would you?
“I wasn't even thinking of the players, to be honest, but my thing was, after losing two All-Irelands in a row, why would you subject the public to coming down to do it? But that decision was made weeks and weeks prior. And I suppose that was probably disappointing from my side of things, that it kind of looked like we had made that decision in The Burlington (Hotel) on Monday morning.
: Newspapers were careful not to write about the rumours of a half-time dressing room row but social media was abuzz with them. Was there any element of truth in what being spread?
: Sometimes fellas think that when you're the manager that you hear everything that's going on. I didn't hear it until I went back into work on the Thursday or the Friday. And I was like, ‘What are you on about?’ And then fellas were showing me text messages. And my attitude was, maybe we should have a fight. And that was my take. Absolutely, totally false. Absolutely no truth in it. And, look, the disgusting point from my part is that they were totally made-up stories, and then individual names were attached to it. And, look, absolutely, under no circumstances did anything like that ever happen in my time with three years involved with Cork. I’ve had absolutely no run-in or argument with any players. I've had plenty of good discussions with our leadership group. Plenty of honest chats. Same thing with our management group. You know what I mean? All those things were absolutely total garbage. And, look, to be honest, probably the most disappointing thing is that you had people that should know better who were actually thinking that it might be true. Not alone that, who goes in and has a big bust-up with a six-point lead?
: Part of our job is to figure out why people reach these conclusions. Were they putting two and two together and getting five in the sense that Eoin Downey was taken off before after an early yellow?
: What fellas fail to remember about that was when we took Eoin off against Limerick in 2024, in the two games previous, we had had two yellow cards (sendings off), Damien [Cahalane] and Seán O'Donoghue, in the Waterford and Clare games. And when we took Eoin off, without being insulting, it was like, ‘If we lose again here, we’re out of the championship and we've lost because we've had three fellas sent off’. And we said, ‘Look, we're playing Limerick, we can't be down a man,’ and that's why we took him off. But subsequent to that, if people actually really watched the games, Eoin had been yellow-carded in games and was never taken off. He was yellow-carded in the Clare game above in Ennis to Peter Duggan and was never taken off. We had made a commitment then that we weren't (going to substitute him if he did). Eoin was a young man learning his trade at that stage. Obviously, he played in 2023, but he was still only an U20 player. And we were trying to develop him and trying to get him to the stage where he could be No3 for Cork and ended up winning an All Star in 2024.
"And look, we had to back him because you go through a situation then when you start creating a narrative where every time a fella gets a yellow card, you've got to take him off. And at that specific time was, it never entered their heads once to take Eoin off. He was a huge player for us, a huge player for Cork going forward and he needed to be backed in that situation. Unfortunately, he got his second yellow card. I'm not one to complain about referees, but when you add the two of them together, they were probably two sides to it. And you're coming up against a brilliant player in John McGrath that has unbelievably huge experience, has been an unbelievable player for Tipperary, especially in the All-Ireland finals. You see even the way he's playing with Loughmore-Castleiney at the moment, what a servant he's been to Tipperary and in fairness to him, what resilience he's shown over the last couple of years when he probably wasn't getting much game-time. He got huge game-time this year and made hay out of it.
: I suppose the only advice that I give him is do it his way and be happy that he's done it his way and bring his own people with him that he trusts because, as I said to you, that loyalty piece is huge and I learned that from my time with Kieran. We had a very loyal management group that time with Kieran, Pat Hartnett and Diarmuid O’Sullivan. I had those myself when I was with Sars. It's a hard gig in the county management. It's all-encompassing and you need people with you. That's what I would say to him because whoever comes in will have the expertise, will know everything. I don't need to tell him about it. You know the players, you know what's going on. The only thing I'd say to him is be himself and trust himself.
: There has been widespread appreciation for you following your decision. As Rob Downey said, the players love you to bits. Is that what you take the most from your experience?
: I think all the lads kind of respected what I was doing and what I was trying to do was in the best interest of the group itself as a whole. Look, I know Rob was quoted as saying that and in every group there are players that you kind of get on with and there's certain players within that group will see opportunities maybe that they might not have got when I was there. I couldn't fault any player for their effort with us. I couldn't fault their commitment to Cork hurling. I couldn't fault their attitude to play with the team. I couldn't fault that. Look, they tried everything they could to do it. The underlining thing for me would be that we got a huge kind of following base behind us. We had loads of great nights. There was loads of enjoyment. I think our playing group is very united and very close in what they want to do and achieve and the new manager will get the benefit of that when they come in. The friends that I've made within my own management team and the background team are hugely important to me because it's a relationship business. We've had great fun out of it, both with the U20s and with the seniors and knocked great craic out of it. That's something that will stay with me.
"It's on to the next man now to see if he can bring back Liam MacCarthy. It's too long a time."
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