Updated at 08.00
EVERY GAA PLAYER likes to leave the game on their own terms. That’s the way everyone dreams of it, you get to talk to the manager and say ‘I’ve had enough, thanks very much’, shake his hand and call it a day.
It doesn’t work like that for everyone. It’s grand for Kilkenny fellas when they’re winning All-Irelands to then retire but that’s not the way it is for a lot of other guys unfortunately.
For the players cut from the Cork panel this week, they probably thought of giving another couple of years services and then they’d be able to walk away from it having given their lot.
But that’s not the way it has turned out. The Cork management have said the door is open for a potential return yet this decision will be a tough one for the Cork players to take and they will wonder is this the end of their Cork careers.
As a player, this was a time of year I found players didn’t like. After coming through really heavy training in December and January, you get to April when everyone wants to be hurling.
Then there was always a meeting held and there were guys cut. You felt for them every year. It’s a time of year that no one liked, management or players.
The cull of the five experienced Cork players — Shane O’Neill, Pa Cronin, Cian Mc, Paudie Sull and Stephen Moylan — is the big talking point. I think the reason Kieran Kingston has culled these guys is he’s taking the long-term view.
There are no assurances but if he’s going to be there for the next few years, you want to bring on your own group. But how long have we been hearing that in Cork about development?
When you take leaders out of the dressing-room, two things can happen. The first thing you’d be hoping for is the guys that wouldn’t be seen as leaders would stand up and start to become leaders. Younger fellas could start to perform and get more confidence then.
The negative scenario to that is that fellas just start hiding away, minding their own corners and no one will become a leader there.
The reason why they’re doing this is it looks like they’re endorsing the young fellas. They’re putting pressure on those guys. If they perform, it was a great move. Cork are rebuilding and the young fellas are performing but if the guys don’t perform, then it’ll come back to the manager again. That’s the way it works.
From what I saw in the league, not too many new players emerged. John Cronin did from Lisgoold, Patrick Collins and Stephen Murphy have come in, they were standout players at underage and do warrant their places on the panel. But Cork are still going to be relying on the big players like Seamus Harnedy and Patrick Horgan.
The departure of Shane and Pa in particular removes guys who are leaders and have experience. If they’re not going well, fair enough, but you need that experience. If you look at the draw that Cork have this year, they’ve to beat Tipperary, Limerick and Waterford or Clare if they’re to win Munster.
That’s three of the best teams in the competition before they get out of Munster. It’s grand if a young player comes out and performs above himself in the first game. But to expect him to do that in three times before you even get to July is not realistic, I think.
It shouldn’t be forgotten I feel that Shane was thrown into the firing line in the All-Ireland final in 2013, put into a position that he wouldn’t normally be comfortable in as a full-back.
The goals came from runners out the field and either side of him. He was left on his own. I’d a lot of sympathy for him that day.
Shane still has pace, he’s a good reader of the game, he’s aggressive. He has all the things that you still need. He’s a big day player and I wouldn’t be too worried if his form wasn’t great now, he’s a big name player and you can still depend on him. That decision was a surprise to me.
When Pa Cronin came on to the panel, he was a left half-forward and I was right half-back. I was marking him the whole time in training games and always found him a handful.
He’s very difficult to mark, he’s opposite sided with left hand on top most of the time, is well capable in the air and can pick off points.
Seamus Harnedy — along with Patrick Horgan — is Cork’s top forward for him and you’d have seen Pa as a replacement for him at full-forward if Seamus had to come outfield during a game. That’s a natural move and looking at the bench, I don’t see anyone who can fulfil that role now.
If you take Cian McCarthy, that guy showed all the promise of being excellent. When we played the All-Ireland semi-final against Kilkenny in 2010, he was going very well in training, it was decided that he was going to be playing wing-forward.
But he was going to make his debut in the championship on JJ Delaney against Kilkenny in Croke Park. He’s a good guy but JJ got the better of him, which was no surprise, he was probably an Allstar that year.
Cian was taken off and I felt for him. He came back again and again, he’s that kind of guy but he never got an extended run after that.
If you look at his form for Sarsfields, he’s top scorer and there are not many forwards in Cork scoring as much as him. On his stats alone he deserves a run but he never got that run.
Paudie was unfortunate with injuries but again another experienced guy, he came off the bench a couple of times this year alone and got goals.
Okay, sometimes you’d look at him and he’d frustrate a manager, he’s so much potential but he mightn’t be getting enough scores on the field.
But again when they’re playing Tipperary in May and it’s 20 minutes to go, you turn around to the bench, you’d like to see Paudie there to be an option.
Again Stephen Moylan didn’t get any extended run. He was comfortable on the ball, he’s good vision, he’s a nice hurler. He was on and off but wasn’t really given a few league games in a row to really look at him at that level.
They got rid of Rob O’Shea as well earlier, another fella you would have thought would have fitted into the mould for them.
The Cork management could just as easily have left this alone for a couple of weeks. The timing of it surprised me, they’re just after going back to Division 1A next year.
The regular league campaign was a disaster, I can’t remember a time when Cork didn’t win a match in that period. To be fair they did stand up last Sunday in the head to head against Galway when it really counted.
It’s going to be an interesting few weeks for Cork before the championship starts. We’re hearing stories that they’ve trained hard and they trained hard through the Tipperary game, they didn’t want to show their full hand and that’s understandable.
They’re after getting rid of a lot of experienced fellas. Year one if I was a manager, I’d rely on my experienced fellas. Especially for that year and then I’d assess it. They’re obviously after going down a different path here.
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