Christy O'Connor: Pat Ryan's greatest impact was Cork hurlers' thrilling style
Brian Hayes developed into one of the country's best forwards under Ryan's watch. Picture: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile
Before the All-Ireland final in July, Pat Ryan sat down with Dónal Óg Cusack in Páirc Uí Chaoimh for an interview which was aired on ‘The Sunday Game Live’ shortly before the game.
It was a lengthy discussion, only a part of which was shown, but the full transcript appeared on the RTÉ website, where Cusack asked his former team-mate 15 questions.
Covering a multitude of angles, Ryan answered each question with the honesty, clarity and conviction which had become his calling card, but one of his most revealing insights came when Cusack asked if Cork’s 20-year wait for an All-Ireland had added a weight to Ryan and the team.
“It doesn't add a weight,” said Ryan. “It's an annoyance really, to be honest with you. When I first got involved with the U20s, we hadn't won a minor title, we hadn't won an U20 title. You were involved in teams then and we did loads of those things, there was a lot of work going on in the background.
“It was to get the negativity off the pages. There was enough negativity, whether it was about the stadium, whether it was about we haven't won this, we haven't won that. Just get back to talking about hurling, get back to talking about games, not what we hadn't won.”
Cork still haven’t won an All-Ireland.
Ryan has always been highly driven and motivated towards success but he still always possessed a holistic attitude towards the game, and the wider welfare of Cork hurling.
It was never about him. It was always about the bigger picture. Results define legacies but Ryan saw style as a form of artistic licence and liberal expression of Cork’s character and innate heritage.
When he first took over, Ryan immediately set out his stall to play a traditional style. “It has to be good hurling,” he said last September. “Cork people want good hurling.
“If they see us losing playing shit, we’re going to get absolutely slaughtered. Whereas if we lose and we’re playing good hurling, we’ll survive. I’ve always said to the players that as long as you’re doing everything right, nobody will blame the players – they’ll blame the management.”
Ryan always had the wherewithal to carry that burden of being the Cork manager. “I wouldn’t say pressure ever bothered me before,” he said in an interview in 2023 after first taking over the senior team.
“Is not winning the All-Ireland a failure in Cork? It is, like, yeah. Would I look on it as a failure myself? I probably wouldn’t because you’d know that you’d given it everything.”
Ryan did. It’s a shame that the All-Ireland final was his last game in charge because Ryan’s real legacy was his vision around how the game should be played.
Ryan’s own personal circumstances place a different context on his reasons for not returning. He has long had the value of perspective anyway since being diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia in 2018.
His departure now is a seismic shock for Cork hurling, but Ryan has more than earned the right to put his family and his own wellbeing ahead of what has now become an intolerable level of pressure and expectation for Cork to deliver an All-Ireland.
Despite all the public support behind Ryan, the atmosphere has become a lot more volatile and uncertain since the defeat to Tipperary. And yet, that harrowing disappointment still won’t have eroded the deep respect for Ryan in Cork.
They are still without an All-Ireland but all of the Cork public will acknowledge that Ryan’s side delivered some of the most memorable moments that any Cork team has given their supporters across the last 50 years.
Three of those days came against Limerick, possibly the greatest team of all time; the 2024 Munster round robin, the 2024 All-Ireland semi-final, and this year’s Munster final.
It's a disappointing ending to Ryan’s Cork managerial career (for now anyway), especially after the crushing feeling from mid-July, and particularly when Ryan is such a cherished and respected figure within the county, and around the wider hurling community.
It’s rare that a manager would be so popular outside his own county, firstly when his team haven’t been successful in winning an All-Ireland, and secondly when Ryan wasn’t an iconic player that the wider public had always identified with.
Cork’s swashbuckling style was an obvious factor in that warmth towards Ryan but the real affection from the public was formed from the empathy, grace, class and dignity that Ryan had always shown in victory and defeat.
That bond was further strengthened from the courage Ryan has displayed since tragically losing his brother Ray in February. During an unimaginably traumatic and difficult year, Ryan’s consistent class and dignity added to the majesty of the man.
Ryan is not just a loss to Cork. The game, and the wider hurling community, will sorely miss his presence.
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