Nemo's 'driving force' Cronin has benefitted from becoming Cork mainstay, insists O'Dwyer

Nemo Rangers boss Robbie O’Dwyer reckons there is a definite correlation between Mark’s Cronin's now first-team status with Cork and his increased influence on the club stage.

Thu, 23 Oct, 2025 - 15:26

Eoghan Cormican

You’d do well to find a conversation regarding Nemo and Sunday’s Cork football final that doesn’t revolve around Mark Cronin. The half-forward is their creative pulse. They tick to his watch and wand.

Nemo Rangers boss Robbie O’Dwyer reckons there is a definite correlation between Mark’s now first-team status with Cork and his increased influence on the club stage.

The surprise for O’Dwyer is how said first-team status with Cork didn’t arrive sooner.

Cronin made his league debut when starting Cork’s 2022 opener away to Roscommon.

His championship debut was another 18 months in the distance, while a first championship start wasn’t achieved until last year’s Sam Maguire group win at home to Donegal.

But even in that 2024 campaign, his number of starts across league and championship still only just shaded his number of appearances off the bench, seven to six.

2025 was his first year of permanent residency. Began all 13 Cork games. Top-scored too with 1-71 (1-50 from the dead-ball).

“We just thought he should have probably been in earlier. He was getting some playing time but very little, do you know what I mean,” O’Dwyer remarked of the 25-year-old's elevation within John Cleary’s Cork set-up.

“He's been a driving force for us this year. He's a real leader and I think it's showing in his performances as well. The bit of confidence of playing for Cork and getting the starts has been a huge difference to him. He's been great with the group and he's driving the fellas on as well.

“He's totally dedicated to the whole thing. He just looks after himself well and he does all the right things. He does what an inter-county player is supposed to do. He treats it as a profession really. He plays as a professional too and around the group he's great.”

Nemo Rangers and Cork forward Mark Cronin. Pic: Eddie O'Hare

With 1-30 to his name across their four-game run to Sunday’s final, Cronin’s play-making and score-taking will be central to their bid to avoid the unwanted bit of history of becoming the first Nemo team to suffer three consecutive county final defeats.

For O’Dwyer, the gnawing disappointment over last year’s second consecutive coming-up-short against Castlehaven was less the 0-16 to 0-11 final scoreline and more the display tabled by the southside city men.

“I was gutted after the game, and I just thought we didn't perform. We did have a good few injuries going into the game to some of our better players. I think we're maybe a bit stronger on the bench this year than we were last year.

“There's always pressure when you're involved in Nemo because you're expected to get to county finals. Look, you're playing your local neighbours, the Barrs, and that brings a small bit of spice to it as well. I do honestly think that the Barrs are probably the form team. We're probably the underdogs going into this final. They've been playing well, they've been scoring a lot and they're a good side.”

O’Dwyer and his backroom have not stood still with the new rules. The game has evolved and Nemo have adapted.

Two members of their 2024 county final full-back line, Briain Murphy and Kevin O’Donovan, now operate far from those defensive postings. Murphy partners Barry Cripps at midfield, shoving Alan O’Donovan into the same half-forward line where his brother now resides.

The former switch was cooked up so as to put three imposing and aerially competent figures across halfway for both retention of their own restarts and spoiling of the opposition’s.

It was this successful stranglehold of the Newcestown kickout that proved the deciding factor in extra-time of their semi-final gripper.

“We looked at the way the rules have gone and obviously kick-outs are everything now, so we needed a bit of physicality around the middle eight. Alan, obviously, has been performing brilliantly around the middle of the field always anyway and Briain has just been a revelation, so we moved him up there.

“Obviously you're taking him away from the full-back line, which is where he'd been all the way up. It's just that we felt we needed a bit of physicality around the middle of the field and the two of them have created that.

“The rules kind of suited us. We like to move the ball at pace. We're kind of a kicking team as much as we can be, and we try to move the ball from A to B as quickly as we can.”