Mark Coleman: Blocking out the noise now part of the Cork territory

For the younger players who are part of this live-on-their-phone generation, the noise can be challenging to eschew and escape.

BLOCKING IT OUT:  Mark Coleman blocks Jason Forde during their Hurling League Division 1A match. Pic: Ray McManus/Sportsfile

Noise. As a Cork hurler, it is always there. Sometimes ringing, sometimes dim. Good, bad, or indifferent, the noise never goes away. As constant as the search for Liam MacCarthy.

It’s the Monday evening after Cork have qualified for a second successive League final. Mark Coleman is sitting at the head of the boardroom table upstairs in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

Those further down the table are listening to him rhyme off the expectations and realities that come with membership of the Cork dressing-room.

It is Coleman who brings the theme and torrent of “external noise” into the conversation. Those listening latch on and seek exploration of the topic.

Easy to block out, Mark?

“No, not easy, but you have to,” he replies.

“I suppose, especially in this day and age with social media and all that, there's things that just get thrown up on your screen without even… you might just open your phone and there'll be something there, but you just have to kind of roll with it, and know that that's going to come with the territory and just do your best to not let it affect you.

“It probably comes easier for the older fellas, but it's the younger fellas who might struggle with it a bit. They might find it hard to walk away from it, but all you can do is just advise them and say, look, it's all part of your territory, and we just focus on ourselves.

“All that matters is the opinions inside the four walls of the dressing room, so that's all we have to kind of keep telling fellas.” 

Coleman is 10 years a Cork senior. It was much harder for the noise to penetrate said walls back in 2016. The social media landscape was not the all-consuming beast it is today. There’s TikTok, podcasts, and 100 other new avenues for noise and nuanced analysis of the game.

For the younger players who are part of this live-on-their-phone generation, the noise - nuanced and otherwise - can be challenging to eschew and escape.

“I've never really kind of delved into too much on the social media side, but it probably wasn't as bad when I was younger either. It's probably more difficult for fellas now,” the half-back correctly acknowledges.

If someone sent him a podcast or television clip pertaining to himself or the Cork hurlers, would he open it?

“People don't send me clips, thank God! No, they wouldn't send me that, they know better than to be sending me anything like that,” is the response.

There was motivation to our question. Coleman was front and centre of the post-match commentary following Cork’s League win over Galway at the end of January. The focus was on the 28-year-old because of a reckless swipe down on the helmet of Cathal Mannion. He was shown yellow. The consensus was that the wrong colour was shown.

Anthony Daly, on his Irish Examiner hurling podcast two days later, said there is no place for such “wildness” in the game.

“I didn’t like the tackle. I never saw Mark Coleman doing that before, don’t know where it has come from. I think it might be a reaction from the players after the All-Ireland that they are trying to establish that we’re harder than people think. I don’t think that’s in Mark’s game. He’s very, very lucky that he’s not facing a couple of months of a ban,” was Dalo’s take.

We asked Mark if he had come across any of Daly’s comments, be it on the Irish Examiner podcast or on RTÉ's League Sunday highlights programme the night before?

“No, what was said? No, this is the first I’ve heard of it.” 

We can only take him at his word.

Let’s keep with outside commentary. Coleman reckons they’ve satisfied and silenced at least one quarter with their frequency of final-day involvement.

Sunday’s League final follows the 2025 All-Ireland, Munster, and League deciders, as well as the concluding 90 minutes of the 2024 season. That year’s League final, involving Clare and Kilkenny, was the last piece of national silverware to be contested without them.

“It's five finals in a row at this stage, so that's definitely a good marker of consistency. It's probably a stick that we would have been beaten with for a long time, that lack of consistency, so I suppose getting to finals and hopefully winning them is a big thing for this group.” 

Given 12 months ago was all about getting a first medal into the pocket of the majority of squad members, what value is there in adding another?

“There's new fellas on the panel who probably don't have any silverware with Cork. It's not like we've tons of medals, we only have a few maybe in the group each, so, every time there's one on the table, you want to go and win them.” 

To do so, they’ll have to end in Limerick’s own backyard the five-game winning run of John Kiely’s men.

“They've been formidable the last number of years, they just probably got caught once or twice, which is always going to happen when you're on a streak of All-Irelands and a streak of Munsters, like they've been on.

“They were always going to hit a small lull at some stage or an off-day, but they're definitely as formidable as ever and they look sharp this year.

“We saw that first-hand in the game against ourselves up there, so yeah, they're definitely as sharp as ever.”