Counihan in reflective mood as he steps down from Cork job after six years in charge

By the time Conor Counihan arrived into the press conference room, word was already out that he'd resigned. He wore it lightly enough, his innate decency shining through even as his six-year stint as Cork manager lay in the ashes. So instead of pressing him on the game that had just slipped away from Cork, we got him to reflect on his time in the tracksuit.

“It’s challenging to keep in there,” he said. “I reflected for some time that now is the time for a change of voice. We still have a good squad of players but after six years you have to ask yourself the questions, are you getting enough out of people and that sort of thing and maybe I wasn’t – that’s for other people to judge. The important thing is that I step down and a fresh voice takes over and that Cork football reaches the pinnacle again.”

He admitted that it was a thought he’d had for most of the season and that only his family knew of his intention to step down whenever 2013 came to an end. He leaves behind a squad that clearly has the talent for another All-Ireland to add to the one they picked up in 2010. To his credit, Counihan conceded that he might not have wrung the last possible drop out of them.

“The job is immense and you could always challenge yourself more. At the end of the day we are amateurs, we have full-time positions in our normal daily lives. You have a family as well and in terms of trying to get the balance, could I have done more? There is always more to do. There is always somebody else that has some angle or some stroke that you need to get the edge. Maybe I didn’t dig deep enough. But look, on the whole, it has been a wonderful experience working with such a quality group of individuals.”