'As long as you're enjoying it' - Cork captain Emma Cleary on dad John's advice

The Cleary family have had a busy and producive spring.

Fri, 10 Apr, 2026 - 06:50

Therese O’Callaghan

John Cleary always encourages his daughter Emma to focus on the enjoyment of the game. The Cork football manager might have not been able to attend many of the ladies football games this spring due to his commitment with the Rebel footballers, but he is there to lend a listening ear and provide constant support.

“Dad is a good man for advice, he’s always there, and he is never too hard on me either,” says the Cork ladies football captain, ahead of Saturday's Lidl National League Division 1 final.

“He always says as long as we’re enjoying it, that’s the main thing. I won a minor All-Ireland with him as coach in 2017, we beat Galway in the final. He coached us for years in Éire Óg and then he did the Cork U16 girls and the Cork minor girls.

“He’s put as much into Ladies Football over the past number of years as he has with the lads. A lot of those girls are coming through now into the senior set up. He has kind of done it all.”

Respect is a two-way street. Following the Cork ladies league game against Meath last month, the PwC accountant made the long journey north to Omagh to see Cork clinch promotion to Division 1 of the Allianz football league.

“I travelled to Tyrone to support dad, it was a nice quick spin home after they won. That was probably the only league game I was at, and he hasn’t got to any of mine.”

Growing up, she never had to look too far for a ready-made role model, it was at a time when the Cork ladies had a steady run of great teams.

“My aunt Nollaig (Cleary) was playing on those teams, and that was really important for us to have female role models. We went to Croke Park every September watching them in All-Ireland finals.

“I remember all those days when we just wanted to be Nollaig. We were in awe of her. They were really special days for the family going up to Croke Park, so to be putting on a Cork senior jersey now, I don’t take that for granted.”

She’ll have her own significant moment on Saturday at the TUS Gaelic Grounds (5pm) when she hopes to steer her side to victory over Galway.

Last year these two sides met in the Division 2 final with the title heading west. In this year’s league, Cork won a close tie. It all points to another fascinating battle.

After edging out Meath at MTU Cork (4-8 to 2-12) on March 21 to make it five wins on the bounce, the Leesiders booked their spot in the Division 1 decider with a round of fixtures still to play. This meant Cork closed out the group stages of the NFL away to Dublin eight days later knowing they were already guaranteed to feature in a showpiece affair in Limerick.

This was also the case for Galway, whose run of five wins and just one defeat (to Cork in round two) from their opening six games of the league helped them to seal a showpiece slot in advance of their clash with Waterford on March 29.

Manager Joe Carroll is now in his second season at the helm of the Cork seniors.

“Last year was Joe’s first year in with the group. I think he took so much learnings from that and we can see all that coming out this year for the management team as a whole. All the learning we took from last year will only stand to him and us going forward this year,” Cleary added.