CORK HURLER EOIN Cadogan is not in favour of a proposal which would see clubs in the Rebel County play a number of championship games without their county players.
The GPA and CPA have already spoken out against the Cork GAA proposal, which was one of three options presented to club delegates at a county board meeting last week.
Cadogan’s side Douglas are one of the clubs who would be most affected if they were to play two championship games in June and July without their Cork contingent.
They have five players who logged game-time in this year’s league for Cork’s senior sides. Cadogan brothers Eoin and Alan, plus Shane Kingston with the hurlers while Kevin Flahive and Sean Powter featured for the footballers.
While Cadogan says “it’s definitely a positive to see the people within Cork are constantly trying to improve structures”, he does not like the idea sitting out any club championship matches.
“The not playing with your club for two games, or whatever amount of games, for me I wouldn’t be in the scenario I’m in representing my county without the people within my club Douglas,” he told The42.
“The whole way up I got numerous coaching advice from people within my own club and community here. To me, they developed me to be able to perform at the highest level, as have the Cork coaches along the way.
The defender continued: “So I don’t see why our own club Douglas, who have maybe between five and seven representatives on the Cork inter-county teams between U17s, U20s and seniors, would be in a scenario where we could have seven players not playing senior football.
“I certainly enjoy going back playing with my club and would hope that would be the case going forward.
“People are having the conversations and I think if you get lots of different opinions then everyone going in the right direction will hopefully lead to only a positive outcome.”
Cadogan was part of the Cork side that defeated Kilkenny “by five or six points” last Wednesday night in a charity game in aid of Kieran O’Connor.
The pair won an All-Ireland together with the Cork footballers in 2010 and Cadogan has been heartened to see the support from the GAA community for O’Connor, who is battling cancer for a third time.
“It’s something that needs to be spoken about in the sense that there’s been massive support for Kieran O’Connor and his family over the past couple of weeks,” he said.
“It was another example of the amount of support, not alone within Cork, but in particular Kilkenny travelling down to play a game midweek was hugely appreciated by Kieran and the people within the community.
“It was a massive success as was all of the fundraising so far to date. From Kieran and the people close to him they’re hugely appreciative of the amount of support they’ve got.
“In 2007 when I first came into the squad Kieran would have been in the full-back line. Between 2007 and 2010, 2011 I would have been competing with Kieran in the same line.
“He always gave a huge amount of support to me, I was a guy coming in there at 22, 23. He was hugely supportive to me and he’s someone I have a great relationship with. I got to catch up with him at one of the walks on the bank holiday weekend.
“He still has the same sort of positivity and drive he had as a player and that’s brilliant to see. I’ve no doubt he’ll continue that over the next couple of weeks.”
Armagh and Kerry were among the counties who raised funds in support of O’Connor in recent weeks.
“I think people can resonate with someone who’s in trouble,” continues Cadogan.
“In particular when it’s in the GAA community. Kieran McGeeney would have spoken to me on the phone and was adamant they wanted to show their support in any shape or form.
“Off his own back going into their last league game it was his number one priority to make sure that was a good turn-out. Not alone Armagh, but it was Kerry GAA as well. People talk about rivalries and Cork against this county or that county, but that’s all parked when someone needs your help.
“There was an outpouring of help from people not alone within Ireland but outside of Ireland as well that have the GAA roots in them.
“It does give you a huge amount of positivity about the organisation that we’re involved in because it does get a lot of stick at different times but for me it’s been a hugely positive couple of weeks for Kieran and the GAA community in general.”
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Cork hurler and John West ambassador Eoin Cadogan is pictured as U14 teams around the country gear up for their first John West Feile season. John West has been a sponsor of the Feile since 2016 and is passionate about encouraging children to participate in Gaelic Games, putting an emphasis on the importance natural protein plays in fuelling young athletes. For more information on the John West Feile 2019 follow John West Ireland on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
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