GAELIC GAMES:CORK INTERIM manager John Considine was last night able to name the county's strongest team of the season to date, as the 2008 panel returned to duty. The team to play Clare in Ennis on Sunday shows five changes from that which lost to Kilkenny in last August's All-Ireland semi-final.
Not selected are: Diarmuid O’Sullivan, still on a break from the game and playing rugby, Joe Deane, Brian Murphy, Seán Ó hAilpín and Jerry O’Connor, none of whom, for various reasons, is fit to play.
Of the replacements, corner back Conor O’Sullivan, in for Murphy, is the only one to have played in this season’s campaign. Others coming in are former All-Ireland under-21 winning footballer Eoin Cadogan at full back in place of O’Sullivan, Kevin Hartnett for Ó hAilpín and Kieran Murphy indirectly for O’Connor.
Considine has had only a couple of nights to assemble a training panel, and whereas he has retained some of the players used by McCarthy in Cork’s winless campaign to date, club matches played on Tuesday have already taken their toll.
Ray Ryan, one of the more impressive of the inexperienced players called up by McCarthy, broke his thumb and will be out for around four weeks.
Asked if he knew of any retirements, as have been rumoured, Considine was non-committal about such speculation.
“That could well still be the case, but whatever help we can get for the next two weeks we’re going to take it.
“If a fella’s available, he’s available; if he’s not, he’s not. Those (long-term) issues will be decided with the new people.
“Joe Deane’s not available – he just hasn’t done the work and wouldn’t be ready.
“I don’t know even if he’s planning to be ready, I don’t know any of that. They’re not issues we can even think of solving; we’re just getting ready for Sunday.
“Jerry O’Connor is out. He had a scan on Wednesday on his hip, and although we were hopeful to squeeze a game or two out of him that won’t be possible. Diarmuid O’Sullivan won’t be back just yet, but he has been down to see us at training and I feel he’ll back in a few weeks. Seán Óg has a hamstring pull.
“There were league games on St Patrick’s Day so it wasn’t possible to pick a team until (last) night when we saw what way they all were after all the bumps and bruises.”
The 1990 All-Ireland winner and current under-21 manager repeated his mantra about the need to focus on Sunday’s match against Clare, a re-run of last year’s All-Ireland quarter-final, won thrillingly by Cork.
He also explained that he had publicly disavowed any interest in permanently taking the senior job in case it proved a distraction.
“Everything’s geared towards Sunday. That would have been the case anyway, but I just put it out there because I don’t want any distraction from Sunday, any speculation.
“I might as well clear the air now: it’s two matches and hopefully we’ll get the work done, but it’s Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. Otherwise we’ll lose focus and won’t have a hope. We’re trying to get up to speed in one week when it’s taken everyone else three months.”
Considine’s appointment was attended by some controversy a week ago when he defeated former All-Ireland winning manager Donal O’Grady in a vote on who should be the interim appointment. At the time it emerged that the under-21 management were initially unaware of the offer to take on the position, but Considine declines to discuss the matter further.
“As I said to the lads, we’re only going to be talking about Sunday. Otherwise if we start talking about what happened in the past we’ll lose focus, so we’re going to do what we asked the players to do, just concentrate on Sunday. In three weeks’ time I might talk about it because I’ll be yesterday’s man at that stage. But in the meantime, no distractions.”
Asked were there tensions evident in his training group between the players from last year, whose withdrawal from the county panel had brought the dispute to a head, and the players drafted in to replace them, Considine unsurprisingly played down the issue.
“Not really, in that the first thing we addressed was summed up by Cian O’Connor, who said, ‘you only see the obstacles when you lose sight of your goal’. Basically that’s what we said to the fellas: focus on the goal and the obstacles don’t come into view.
“So I wasn’t looking for obstacles. With any group of people, say 10 working together, there’s always going to be some tensions. I’m not looking for them. Focus on Sunday.”
Meanwhile, the GAA have named the three-man committee which will work with the association’s director general, Páraic Duffy, to recommend a new Cork hurling manager.
Former dual stars Denis Coughlan and Jimmy Barry-Murphy have, together with 1984 All-Ireland winning captain John Fenton, agreed to undertake the task, which it is hoped will further the process of rehabilitation after the corrosive controversy of recent months, culminating in last week’s resignation of McCarthy after a bitter dispute with the county senior hurlers.
Coughlan will chair the group and they will meet Duffy over the weekend to begin the process.
Whereas no time frame has been stipulated for the nomination of a successor, Considine has been specifically given two matches in charge, this Sunday against Clare and seven days later against Limerick.
CORK (NHL v Clare):D Cusack; S O'Neill, E Cadogan, C O'Sullivan; J Gardiner, R Curran, K Hartnett; T Kenny, C Naughton; B O'Connor, N McCarthy, P Cronin; P Horgan, N Ronan, K Murphy (Sarsfields). Subs: M Coleman, C Murphy, K McGann, G Calnan, B Johnson, K Murphy (Erin's Own), T Óg Murphy, B Corry, P O'Sullivan.
