Enjoyment outweighing age for Cork's Séamus Harnedy
Cork's Séamus Harnedy tries to get past Tipperary's Gearóid O'Connor during Sunday's Munster SHC game at FBD Semple Stadium. Picture: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
In an ideal world, Séamus Harnedy would be marking his 34th birthday on July 17 with an All-Ireland final win four days later.
Such a prospect looked close to non-existent three weeks ago when Cork began their Munster SHC campaign with two defeats. It’s obviously still quite slim, not least because the Rebels are still not assured of progress to the All-Ireland series but Harnedy has played his part in giving them a chance of qualification, scoring a pair of points in Sunday’s win over Tipperary.
While it’s over a decade since the St Ita’s man made his inter-county debut, the passing of the years doesn’t feel like it has had too much of a toll.
“You can’t listen to too much outside noise,” he said, “you just keep trying to improve as a player, week in and week out.
“It might take a bit longer to recover after the games but, to be honest, I get fierce enjoyment going up to training.
“They’re a great bunch of guys and the younger lads coming on the squad are very driven. That’s infectious and it’s really enjoyable being amongst them. I really enjoy working with this management team, too.
“If you have the right mentality and belief, age isn’t a factor at all. I’m really enjoying it and that’s what it’s all about.”
It hasn’t all been enjoyment this year, with Cork’s defeats to Waterford and Clare putting them in a precarious position. Since then, though, the wins at home to Limerick and now away to Tipp have helped to turn things around.
“It’s been a tough few weeks,” Harnedy said.
“In the Clare game, we were happy with our performance but we didn’t get the result down in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
“We were really backed into a corner and, in fairness, everybody put their shoulder to the wheel and we’ve got two very good performances.
“They didn’t leave us on our own, they’ve been brilliant the last few weeks. We’re delighted, two good performances and we have to watch on now and see what happens next week but you have to be happy with the displays.”
The centre-piece of Sunday’s 4-30 to 1-21 win was the three goals scored by Alan Connolly and Harnedy was delighted to see the Blackrock man flourish.
“In the first 10 or 15 minutes, I was guilty of it myself, not getting the ball in there enough,” he said.
“I think we started hitting it into them after that and he’s a top-class forward. He’s in a rich vein of form and it’s brilliant, we’ll need him again, hopefully, this season!
“He has a brilliant mentality and brings it to training every night, so it’s great to have a guy of that calibre in there.”
Having netted just before half-time to send Cork in with a lead of 1-15 to 1-12, Connolly’s second and third goals in the second half helped to put the visitors in control. The lead was extended down the stretch, with nobody resting on their laurels.
“You have to keep your head in the game, next ball, in inter-county hurling you have to be tuned-in and focused,” Harnedy said.
“The last four or five minutes, watching on [having been brought off], you could see that fellas weren’t leaving their foot off the accelerator and that was encouraging to see.”
The hope is that they will have more outings but there is of course uncertainty in that Cork’s fate won’t be finalised until next Sunday.
“It’s going to be a tricky one,” Harnedy said, “it’s something you can’t control.
“I’m just going to have to enjoy the day as best I can. We said to ourselves after the Clare game that we had two games left and to bring two big performances and see where it took us.
“We still have to wait one more week. Obviously, we’re hoping that results go our way but we’ll take Sunday and enjoy the performance and then see how things pan out.”
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