A THIRD CHAMPIONSHIP game in the space of 15 days awaits John Cleary and his Cork charges next Sunday.
A pair of wins over Mayo and Roscommon in breathless encounters have propelled Cork back into mainstream football conversations, with a shot off Ulster kingpins Derry awaiting at the All-Ireland quarter-final stage next Sunday.
It’s a hectic and mind-scrambling time for an inter-county manager and one were Cleary admits there is too much of a squeeze being put on squads with the new fixture schedule.
“Those games, I know even from our side of the fence (in management), they take a fair bit out of you because you’re preparing and it’s a long day, the day of a championship match.
“And, you know, the following day, you’re fairly wiped out.
“And then to realize six, seven days time you’re doing it all over again and you need to get up the reserves of energy. For us all there, you got to go to work the following day and the players have got to go to work.
“So I think that’s the one criticism I have is the three weeks in a row. Alright, the reward for winning your group is that you don’t have that. But, I think it’s a bit too compressed alright at this stage of the season. Maybe next week we’ll be saying, look, wasn’t it great to have momentum for those lads that played three weeks in a row.
“But the jury is out on that whether the teams that were sitting at home last weekend have the advantage. I think the weekend will tell.”
Cleary has a few injury headaches to process between now and Croke Park next Sunday. Captain Brian Hurley missed last Saturday’s meeting with Roscommon, Ruairi Deane was forced off through injury for the second successive game.
Luke Fahy, a bright spark that has emerged this summer, is also a concern.
“Brian Hurley is recovering, but we’ll probably give him another couple of days to see where he is at. He’ll have to train before the end of the week, he is making progress, but he really needs to be in top shape to have a chance of lining out on Sunday. We’ll give him every chance.
“Ruairí, it was an aggravation of the same thing (Mayo injury), his neck. He probably wasn’t 100% right the last day, but we’ll see. I’d be hopeful he would make it.
“Luke has an ankle problem. It was fairly swollen on Sunday. Again, we’ll give him every chance. It is probably 50-50 at this stage.”
Waiting for medical updates is one part to contend with in the frenzy of week-on-week championship outings.
“I wouldn’t say (it’s) all day, every day, tut there’s something happening every hour anyway,” says Cleary.
“Whether it is dealing with players or even the logistics now of trying to get a hotel in Dublin wasn’t easy for the weekend. There was about 45 phone calls and then come back to me and say is this place alright. We did (get sorted).
“All the logistics goes in on the Monday and then you’re trying to review your match on the day before and then you’re trying to get Derry in focus,
“Then you were waiting until later in the day to see when the fixture was on, was it Saturday or Sunday? So it’s definitely all consuming. And, that’s why I say even if you had a week’s break that you could just, you know, take a deep breath, get back to that and then go at it again. But at this stage, you can’t.
“Look, we’re no different to the other three teams that that came through, but I think in the overall sphere, I’m sure other guys would agree, it needs maybe to be a small bit more spread out at this stage of the season.
“You’re thinking about it all the time when you go to sleep at night, you’re thinking about it in the morning, you’re thinking about it and, you know, and, but look, that’s, that’s the game we’re in and there’s nobody putting a gun to our head to do it.”
