John Cleary: My term is up now, I've been four years at it

Cork manager John Cleary was non-committal on his future as boss following his side’s All-Ireland SFC preliminary quarter-final defeat to Dublin at Croke Park on Saturday evening.

The Rebels lost out on a scoreline of 1-19 to 1-16 as the Rebels' season came to an end. The Castlehaven clubman has been at the helm since the summer of 2022 on a full-time basis having served as interim manager in the few months previous to that after Keith Ricken stepped aside due to health reasons.

“My term is up now, I've been four years at it,” Cleary said post-match.

“As anyone will know, it's tough going. But look, we'll see during the week or the week after and we'll talk to the relevant parties. 

But at this stage now my term is up so we'll see what the future holds going forward.

“There are a lot of positives out of the year. We finished the league well and it has been said enough times, we had chances to beat Kerry in the Munster semi-final. Sometimes that seeps into the confidence of guys then when you're losing matches, trying to build them up again.

“But, the bigger matches, we don't seem to have a problem then. Anytime we play Kerry, even though we were beaten twice this year by them, we rose to the occasion. 

RIGHT PLACE

“This Dublin match, there wasn't a lot to say to get the lads up for the game. I knew that they were in the right place coming in here today. And so that's why we'd be very disappointed to come so close and everyone would be looking back at this incident and that incident when we were beaten by one score.

“But look, that's the nature of the championship this year. I suppose maybe the one pleasing thing is that we know at our best that we can compete with anyone in the country.” 

Cork have fallen at the All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final stage for the second year on the trot. It’s widely accepted that it’s a wide-open championship this year with the new rules making it very exciting.

“It’s very open. There were five of us talking the other night and five of us picked different teams that we thought would win the All-Ireland.

ENJOYABLE

“So I think that's where we're at now. And I think it's something great to look forward to for the next few weeks. We're awfully disappointed that we're not in that mix now and we would love to be because the football this year has been way more enjoyable to coach, more enjoyable to watch.

And the lads are even saying it's way more enjoyable to play. 

"So overall I think it has been a super championship and I think probably the best is yet to come.”