Cork rumour mill doesn't bother Rebel stars, insists Downey
LOCAL HEROES: Pictured at the launch of the championship season with Clubber are Rob Downey (Glen Rovers, Cork), Darragh Corcoran (Ballyhale Shamrocks, Kilkenny), Brian Stack (St. Brigid's, Roscommon) and Eimear McGrath (Drom & Inch, Tipperary) alongside Jimmy Doyle (Clubber TV). Clubber is covering live championship matches for 15 county boards this season, with over 2,000 live matches set to be streamed this year. To find out more, and to get your Clubber subscription, visit clubber.ie
It's getting up on seven weeks since Rob Downey and Cork made for the Croke Park exits, shoulders burdened and lowered.
Very few, outside of Galway at least, had envisaged an All-Ireland semi-final defeat for Cork. Certainly not a shellacking.
Downey 'got away for a few days' afterwards, then returned to his club, suffering a Round 1 loss to Blackrock at the start of this month. Glen Rovers will go again this Sunday in Castletownroche, against Kanturk.
"It's a big one, it's a knock-out game for us, it's do-or-die really," said Downey of the Group 1 fixture.
The all-or-nothing feel to the occasion will at least feel familiar for Downey who has lived that existence with Cork for several seasons now.
Even after the Galway game back in early July, the rumour mill kept going. Everyone seemed to have an explanation for what went wrong.
"It seems to be a Cork thing alright at the moment, just with all the rumours and stuff," said Downey, speaking at the launch of Clubber's coverage of the club championships.
"It doesn't really bother us. Maybe when I was a bit younger, I would have taken it more to heart. To be honest with you, some of them are actually kind of quite funny, so I just leave them roll off you. I don't know who's coming up with them, or where they're starting, but I'd be questioning the people who actually believe them, to be honest with you."
It was something similar 12 months ago. The gossip then was of a half-time brawl in the Cork dressing-room which preceded their second-half collapse against Tipperary. More nonsense.
The straight line between the two events, of course, is terrible second-half performances. And Croke Park itself. Is that venue an issue now?
"No, I love it," insisted Downey. "As a team, our Cork team, we've probably played some of our best stuff up there. The All-Ireland semi-final in 2024 and the All-Ireland final in 2024, I know we didn't get out the right side of that final, but we played brilliantly as well. The Dublin game (in 2025).
"I think sometimes people like to hang on to the negatives, but as a team, and individually, I love it. It's probably my favourite place to play and why wouldn't it be?"
Likewise, Downey scotched suggestions that, after the 2025 final, a layer of scar tissue developed.
"Definitely not," he said. "I think, to be honest with you, there's probably a bigger deal made of that from the outside than there is on the inside. We wouldn't feel any sense of scar tissue."
So what went wrong against Galway, to turn a half-time lead into an 11-point loss?
"I think when the momentum went against us, we found it hard to pull it back," offered Downey, who said he did his best to try to arrest the flunk.
"We've done plenty of work with sports psychologists over the years and when things like that are happening, you'll have your own cues and triggers and stuff that you might use individually to pull yourself back into the game, if you're feeling you're not in the game or if you're drifting or whatever it may be. We definitely have used lots of those kinds of things. But as I say, look, when a team gets a run on you, it still can be hard to pull it back."
Galway got kudos for their tactics, essentially turning the middle third into a war zone that they dominated.
"We did expect it," maintained Downey of Galway's approach. "We had prepared for it as well, to be fair. I thought we actually played quite well in the first half. It was just maybe when Galway came out in the second half and got, like I said, that run on us with the couple of points. The crowd really got in behind them. I think we had a few wides and a few things went against us as well. We just found it hard to pull it back."
At this stage, Downey is already looking to 2027 and the positives that can be taken from 2026.
"Hugh (O'Connor), William (Buckley), Alan (Walsh) and Barry (Walsh), they all made their debuts, which is brilliant," he said.
Could Cian O'Neill yet join them too, after the end of his Kerry affair?
"I've only heard it the same way you have," said Downey of media reports. "The only thing I've heard is that he might be coming in, but nothing set in stone. We haven't been notified anyway as a playing group, that's all I know."
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