STEADINESS IS THE key message from Cork football coach Ronan McCarthy ahead of Saturday’s Munster senior football final against Kerry in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
Having endured more downs than ups over the past few years, the Rebels come into the game off the back of an 11-point win over Tipperary in their provincial semi-final.
After a league that was more down than up, it was encouraging for Cork, but McCarthy is keen to keep things on an even keel.
“I came out after the Tipperary game and I did say that, had we been beaten, I would have asked people to keep things in perspective,” he said.
“What you find now in terms of analysis and coverage of games is huge highs and huge lows.
“Suddenly, you are now hearing that people are very positive about it and so on. Actually, let’s keep things steady here. All the signs are from this group, I can honestly say in six months we have not had a bad training session since we started.
“They are working very hard and trying to apply the message we are giving them. We want them to play, to go out and express themselves, take the game to the opposition. They haven’t always done it, but we kept things steady when we didn’t.
“The league match against Cavan where the performance was diabolical, we didn’t go crazy after it, we just kept working. I felt we played really well against Roscommon. We played well, obviously, against Tipperary and got a great result.
“You hope that bit of momentum will carry us through. If it doesn’t, we’ll deal with that as well. There is no reason why we can’t perform, there is more in us.
“What is clear to me is that there is more in us. We’ll see if that will come out in Munster final.”
The day after Cork’s win over Tipp, Kerry sent out a message with their victory over Clare and they will go in as strong favourites. When asked if Cork are under any pressure, McCarthy turns it around.
“I’m looking forward to it,” he says.
“I have a simple philosophy, I have my way of doing things, it has had a reasonable degree of success for me in the past.
“I know when that team runs out on the pitch against Kerry, that they are well-prepared, that there is real quality in the group and we’ve done everything we can to have them ready.
“After that, be it victory and plaudits or defeat and criticism, you have to look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself did you do everything you could.
“I detach myself from the pressure a small bit. Of course, I want Cork and this group of players to be successful, but to some extent, the work has been done already. We are fine-tuning things now.
“They’ve worked and I’ve worked very hard for the last six months and you are hoping, as it did against Tipperary, that it comes out in the performance.”
It’s not the first Munster final to be decided on a Saturday night – Kerry beat Cork in a replay in 2014 while in hurling Waterford overcame the Rebels in similar circumstances in 2010 – but it will still feel different. Nevertheless, it’s not something McCarthy has a problem with.
“No,” he says, “if they want to play it on a bank holiday, we’ll play it, it is worth trying.
“It might be quite novel. The feedback from the hurling has been that Saturday evening games have been quite well received and there is a great atmosphere at them.
“It is a bit of a sideshow, be it in the Páirc or wherever, be it 3pm on Sunday or 7pm on Saturday, we have to go and play and not get distracted by that.”
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