John Horgan on Pat Ryan's legacy and who should replace him as Cork hurling manager
Pat Ryan at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
Since the All-Ireland final, the speculation on Leeside had been rife, was Cork hurling boss Pat Ryan going to give it another year or was he going to call time on a job that he had given so much to over the past few years.
Five weeks had passed since that devastating day in Croke Park so the appropriate time had arrived for a decision to be made.
The club championships were well underway and it would not be too long before the business end of those campaigns were reached when the old or a completely new management team could form an opinion on certain players who they believed might have something to offer the county team.
That situation applies in all counties, a management team in place to oversee that process.
Pat Ryan's decision to step down wasn't exactly a bolt out of the blue, he had given it everything and more over the past three years, a person of the highest integrity with a young family and who had to endure the great loss of his beloved brother Ray only a short few months ago.
The magnitude of the All-Ireland final loss to Tipperary cut deeply with him but that defeat should not define the outstanding contribution that he gave to the cause of Cork hurling and its betterment.
No Cork hurling manager has climbed the steps of the Hogan Stand since John Allen in 2005. Since that great day in September of that year quite a few others have come up short in that quest, Gerald McCarthy, Denis Walsh, 1999 winning boss Jimmy Barry-Murphy, Kieran Kingston, John Meyler and Kingston in his second spell.
Pat Ryan came agonisingly close in 2024, a tug of a jersey not spotted by officials that would have brought about a certain draw against Clare in the final.
Ryan could have cut loose that day in the aftermath of some questionable decisions that did not go Cork's way but he didn't, instead congratulating Clare and pointing to some of his own team's shortcomings on the day.
Winning anything on the very level playing field that inter-county hurling has become is a very big task, be it league or championship, particularly the Munster championship which is very appropriately titled, a minefield.
Ryan managed that feat on that great day on the Ennis Road a couple of months ago and his players also landed Cork's first national league success since 1998. Breaking the stranglehold that the great Limerick team had in the province and on the All-Ireland was one of his great achievements.
Cork did not achieve that but getting into two finals in consecutive years in such a competitive environment represented a job very well done.
Being an intercounty manager in these times is a gargantuan task, all the more so in a county where success is demanded year in, year out.
The general consensus is now very much leaning to the thinking that you have to be retired from your place of employment, in other words combining the two is becoming more and more difficult.
The team manager is front and centre of everything and there are growing calls now for intercounty managers to be paid, such is the workload that they are dealing with.
And maybe that should be the case, some type of remuneration in a position that is becoming more and more of a balancing act.
So, how will history view his three-year tenure on Leeside?
It's a pity that it ended the way it did, a total second-half collapse in the All-Ireland final against a county that Cork had taken care of convincingly in their two previous meetings in the league final and in the Munster arena.
There is rarely a perfect world for a manager, the perfect ending. As far as Pat Ryan is concerned, he departs in the knowledge that he served Cork hurling to the very best of his ability.
His success as U20 boss prior to taking the senior managerial reins has laid a very solid foundation for his successor.
In the first of the two senior finals that he was in charge of, the difference between glory and heartbreak was wafer-thin. It was much different the second time but two trophies of real significance were delivered and that had not happened on Leeside for quite a while.
He represented Cork hurling with the utmost dedication and was a great ambassador for the game in the county, something he previously had done as a quality player in the red jersey and with his club Sarsfields.
Despite the devastation that followed this season's final loss in Croke Park, there is every reason to believe that Cork will be a leading contender again in 2026. Ryan won't be there but his successor will be inheriting a squad that for the most part will remain in place with a few additions.
Those players from Ryan's U20 teams will be a year older and wiser and right now all that is left to say is that his contribution over the past number of years should be a forerunner for the lengthy famine to end sooner rather than later.
Pat Ryan has given sterling service to Cork hurling and we should all be very thankful for that.
Of course, all the focus switches now to who will carry the torch for the next few years.
Firstly, there should be no conversation whatsoever about going outside the county, we have plenty of fine candidates on our own doorstep.
The obvious and right name that immediately comes under the spotlight is Ben O'Connor, a former Cork All-Ireland winning captain of the highest calibre, a successful U20 boss with the county and one whose coaching feats at club level with Midleton and Charleville tell their own story.
As far as top-class credentials go, he has to be in pole position if he feels the timing is right and surely it is.
Others will rightly enter the conversation, the likes of Tomás Mulcahy, Sars' Johnny Crowley, Ger Cunningham, or JBM, not as manager but perhaps having a role to play again with his vast experience and past success.
The likes of the Cloyne boys, Donal Óg and Sully, the highly-rated Noel Furlong, this year's minor boss and 1999 All-Ireland winner Fergal McCormack and Denis Ring will form part of conversations too.
It's still the best part of a fortnight before the club hurling championships resume again and it would be right and proper to have a management team in place by that opening weekend in September.
This appointment should not be a long, drawn-out process.
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