Ger Millerick expects Cork to push on after Waterford win

Having got off the mark in the Allianz HL Division 1 Group A with victory over Waterford last Sunday week, Cork will look to maintain their momentum when they travel to Tullamore next Sunday.

Victory over Offaly at Bord na Móna O’Connor Park would improve the Rebels’ chances of securing a spot in Division 1 of the revamped league for 2025 as well as potentially keeping alive hopes of a semi-final this year.

Having impressed in the third quarter against the Déise, Cork led by ten points at one stage before a fightback by the visitors left it 1-21 to 1-19 at the end. Cork defender Ger Millerick now feels that they can build on the positive result.

“I think the most important thing against Waterford was to win the game,” he says, “and luckily we did that.

“Our performance was patchy – we definitely showed what we can do after half-time in that 15- or 20-minute period but it’s about consistent and trying to be able to do that for the 70 minutes-plus.

“We lost our shape and our momentum in the last 15 or 20 minutes and that’s the learning we took the game, really. We’re hopefully going to improve that, to stop it happening again.”

UCC student Millerick is currently on placement at his alma mater, Midleton CBS, where he is teaching mathematics and PE. Like many of the Cork squad, he was balancing county commitments with the Fitzgibbon Cup earlier in the year, though doing that in addition to a full-time job had its positive aspects, too.

“It definitely made things a bit more complicated,” he says, “but in a way it gave me more structure, too.

“I’ve had the same routine, week on week. With regard to the Fitzgibbon Cup, there were some hiccups, like when we played Mary I at 2pm on a Wednesday and I was supposed to be in school.

“It’s a case of making sure you’ve planned ahead and that you’ve everything sorted at the start of the week. To be fair, Midleton CBS have always been very good to me and they’ve been very accommodating.

“It was a busy period of time but Cork, UCC and the school made things easy for me.”

Having so many players involved in the inter-varsity competition was a factor in Cork’s slow start to the league as they lost to Clare and Kilkenny. What was important from the point of view of Fr O’Neills man Millerick and the other players involved was the co-operation between managements.

“To be fair to the management, of both Cork and UCC, that January/February window is difficult,” he says.

“Everything is so condensed in terms of fixtures but they did very well to manage it this year, there was great communication.

“We were told on a Monday exactly what we were going to be doing for that week and we knew when to do our gym sessions and all of that. There was a clear pathway put in front of us and that was easy to follow, which is exactly what a player wants.

“For the two sets of management, it probably is difficult because they want access to their players all of the time. Cork had a lot of players involved in the Fitzgibbon and obviously you want as many people as possible on the field to play A-versus-B games and that wasn’t possible in January and February.

“They dealt with it well, to be fair, though it might have had some impact on the first two league games. You can’t do anything about that, it’s the way the fixtures fell.”

Millerick (24) is equally comfortable in either of the defensive lines. Having missed the 2021 All-Ireland loss to Limerick after sustaining a hamstring injury in the semi-final win over Kilkenny, he suffered more niggling knocks in the wake of that but is now hoping to reap the benefits of a full pre-season.

“To be fair, it was a fairly significant injury in 2021,” he says.

“I was out for four-to-five months and, when you’re out for a period like that, you nearly always get small niggles when you come back, which I did.

“Touch-wood at the moment, I’m getting a good run and that’s thanks to the S&Cs and the physios with Cork. They do a tireless amount of work with us and I was lucky enough this year as well to get a really good block of pre-season in.

“It was disappointing obviously that our club got knocked out of the championship early but, on the flip of the coin, it gave me more time to get a good bulk of pre-season in and try to do lot of rehab to prevent any injuries occurring.

“I think that that’s standing to me now.”