EIMEAR SCALLY HAS opened up on her decision to depart the Cork ladies football panel.
“Bottom line, it’s just not an environment that I want to be in right now,” the three-time All-Ireland winner told The42 this week.
Scally’s exit follows the retirement of Martina O’Brien last week, while The42 understands that several other players are also considering their future ahead of the 2023 campaign.
Scally, who previously took a year out from the panel in 2020, has been one of the country’s top forwards over the past few years. Still only 25 years old, the Éire Óg star has been a big name on the inter-county football scene since starting out at the age of 17.
Her senior breakthrough arrived in the 2014 All-Ireland final, when the teenage substitute famously promised — and scored — a crucial goal to steer Eamonn Ryan’s all-conquering side to glory.
She was nominated for All-Star awards in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021, but will not be returning for the Rebels’ 2023 tilt.
“I guess this year, it wasn’t an environment that I felt I enjoyed,” she explained. “It wasn’t an environment where I felt kind of aligned to maybe my own values.
“It’s not through spitefulness that I’m leaving. It did affect my club football and my own mood to an extent so as I said [after her year out in 2020], I wouldn’t let that happen again. I suppose, bottom line, it’s just not an environment that I want to be in right now. Look, there’s a lot more outside of Cork football for me to enjoy, and one big aspect of that is going to enjoy club football fully next year.”
Scally endured a stop-start 2022 amidst injury struggles, but points to other issues when reflecting on a disappointing season and her decision to depart.
“It kind of got to a stage where I wasn’t enjoying going to training. I hope I do myself justice in saying this, but I always felt I would have given 110% in giving encouragement and keeping the spirits high in training, and always try to have a bit of a laugh. I suppose that’s what football is there for, it’s a hobby at the end of the day. You’re supposed to be having fun at it, but I suppose it wasn’t really that fun for me.
“I guess losing a quarter-final to Mayo — I can’t remember the last time Cork were knocked out before an All-Ireland semi stage. To be part of that, it was quite disappointing to lose on a day that… I felt we weren’t really doing ourselves justice in the championship up to that, to an extent. I think we probably all let ourselves down as a group that day, but obviously Mayo outplayed us too. It was just so disappointing to leave championship so early on.”
She let Cork know of her own personal decision to leave “towards the end of August,” though the situation was clear in her own head before that All-Ireland quarter-final exit in early July.
“I don’t know if it’s bad to say, but I had definitely made up my mind probably four or five weeks before we were knocked out of championship, in the sense that I was really thinking about it. I was like, ‘I really don’t think I’ll be coming back into this team next year.’ And then I suppose after the Mayo game, I just kind of knew.”
Limited to a substitute role for the latter stages of 2022, Scally is conscious not to come across as bitter or spiteful.
“I was playing Cork football since U13, started playing on underage teams, and when you’re that age and whatever team you’re in, it’s the most important thing to you in the world at the time,” she reflected.
“We played up through the years, we had great groups in there from underage up. I suppose we always had really good mentality up to minor. There was no cliques or one-man shows, it was everyone tying in behind each other.
“I love the group I grew up with. everyone was best of friends and look, we carried that experience into the Cork seniors as well.
“I suppose making the step-up from minor to senior was with Eamonn Ryan at the time, and I can’t really speak about my experience of transition into that team more positively. You knew your place in there, everyone was treated equally, and the OGs that you had in there, the lessons you’d learn off them about togetherness, what a team is, what a team should be, being graceful in victory and defeat always came true – and how to work hard.
“I guess a lot of my years have been spent with Cork football and I’m quite conscious that I have a lot of friends made out of football — people from outside the county and within the county — but it’s just not one for me anymore at this moment in time.”
She says she will miss aspects of it, and will not rule out a return in the future.
“Down the line with Cork, it could be a team I hope that I go back into. Cork has been at the forefront of my life for the last number of years.
“I really do love Cork football, and maybe that’s contradictory of me to say considering I’m not going back in with the panel this year, but I suppose when you kind of have enough of something at the time, you kind of have to leave it and maybe focus on other things.
“I’ve a big family that I love, I have eight nieces and nephews, I have a girlfriend, I have a lot of things outside of that that I love paying focus to. I suppose the way my mood was at times last year, I don’t see myself going back into the Cork set-up, definitely not for 2023.
“Again, it’s something that I was happy to step away from — and it’s not a case that I want to be in and out when it suits me, definitely not. But I just know I won’t be going back in there again, for the foreseeable anyway. It’s just not a set-up I want to be involved in right now.”
Scally also touched on the bigger picture of Cork ladies football. There has been controversy on Leeside in recent weeks, with All-Ireland-winning minor manager Joe Carroll informed by email that he was not being reappointed. Jamie Cronin has since succeeded Carroll in the role.
The turnover of coaches at underage level is one concern for Scally, as is the lack of minor players coming through to the top of the senior pile.
“If you look at the Cork minors and the success they’ve brought to Cork football in the last number of years, it’s no secret that they’ve lost only one game since 2015. I guess you’d have to look at from 2015, the coaches and management that were in with Cork minors, and where have they gone now?
“We’re losing great people that have brought success to the county and I don’t know… do the county board just seem to be happy to see them move on and bring in new people? I don’t really understand it. I guess you’re saying, ‘Why change something that’s working?’
“And then there is a problem there with minors not transitioning into the senior panel at times. When you look at the Mayo game, I think there were four people starting who’ve started on the minor teams since 2015. I thought that was a pretty low number.”
