Cork v Clare: Pat Ryan's faith in maturing panel is rewarded
Cork manager Pat Ryan. Picture: Inpho/Tom Maher
The Cork panel of 1999 that will greet the Croke Park crowd on Sunday was a prime example of a settled team.
Across four championship matches, the starting 15 remained the same, with a slight rejig in the forwards the only hint of upheaval. That’s not to say it wasn’t a squad effort – Alan Browne and Kevin Murray were nominated for All-Stars despite not starting at all – but they certainly reaped the benefits of not needing to change, game-on-game.
The current iteration are like that, to a degree.
For instance, apart from the hamstring problem that ruled Séamus Harnedy out of the win over Offaly, the starting six forwards have remained the same since the Munster SHC clash with Clare on April 28.
The goalkeeper and full-back line have also stayed the same since then and, while numbers 5-9 have been shuffled, there has never been more than once change per match.
The biggest shift came for the Clare match at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh when, after losing their opener to Waterford, Cork made six changes to the starting team.
Looking back now, did manager Pat Ryan – one of those who had been pushing for a start in 1999 – feel that it was a gamble?
“Not really,” he says. “There were a couple of lads who had been in position from the league and a couple of lads had been out injured and were just coming back.
“We probably rushed Mark [Coleman] back a bit quickly into the team to be the extra man. He was coming back and showed a great attitude to come back.
“Obviously, Mark came out of the team then against Clare but came back into it again. It was just a situation where he wasn’t ready to be in that thing. We had a couple of injuries and, look, we had to make a couple of changes because it wasn’t an individual thing, it was more of a team thing and some fellas probably got the brunt of it.
“But we had to show that if we were going to keep talking about the value of the panel and we lost a match and we didn’t play as well as we wanted to, we had to change it. Six was a lot but we felt they were the right six.”
Brian Hayes, a sub in Walsh Park, was one of those who came into the side and since then he has grown with each passing game, culminating in a haul of 1-4 against Limerick in the All-Ireland semi-final.
Ryan was in charge of the Cork U20 side when Hayes was part of All-Ireland-winning sides for the 2020 and 2021 seasons and he knew that there was a lot there to work with.
“He was raw, a big strong fella, and I knew that he was a good player,” he says.
“Obviously he comes from a great lineage, with his own dad Paddy being a fantastic footballer himself. He just had a bit of size, his length, he had something. We knew there was something in him. I worked very well with Keith Ricken that year with the U20s and we made an opportunity for him to play both and he really appreciated that.”
Even so, the step up to senior has taken time to adjust to.
“I think his technical abiity was always very good,” Ryan says, “it's just he wasn't doing enough of it.
“His own uncle Ger [Cunningham] is still with him at that club level. Adrian O'Brien, who would be [Limerick hurler] Shane O'Brien's father, was with them when they won a county.
“Confidence and playing well, your touch comes up and your striking comes up and your hurling comes up. He's giving us something different all the time.”
Another player who has come to the fore during this run is Shane Barrett, who Ryan feels has stepped up to another level.
“He’s a fantastic leader,” he says, “he’s really taken that leadership role, really intuitive. He’s got so much intelligence to what he does.
“They really want to get to know themselves and know what their character is about and in fairness he’s a really intelligent player for us.”
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