Pat Ryan: Whoever's appointed will be a fantastic candidate and we've plenty of great people...

While Pat Ryan has no doubts that he made the right decision not to undertake a new term as Cork hurling manager, he is not ruling anything in or out with regard to the future.

Almost a week on from making the call to step aside, Ryan is looking forward to being a Cork fan again, happy to be able to attend matches in a more anonymous fashion and grateful to have encountered so many good people. What happens down the line is a blank canvas.

“I'd never say never,” he said.

“I’m going out the door on great terms with the county board and the people that are there and, from my own point of view, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it.

“I wouldn't have changed the experience for anything, but I'd like to have made one or two different decisions that got us over the line!

“It's the people I've met – there’s a wide range of people Aidan O'Connell to Sinéad O'Keeffe to Daniel Lane to Denis Calnan, to all the office staff, all the people that are involved around Cork GAA that you meet and that you deal with that make things really good. I’ve fantastic relationships with lots of them.

“Hopefully, I won’t be needed again but you’d never say never if your county come looking for you to answer the call.

“We’re going to have fantastic people over the next few years. 

Whoever’s appointed will be a fantastic candidate and we’ve plenty of great people coming through that will get an opportunity.

“That was my key thing – and I’ve said this all the time and if you look at my career – I was involved with Sars and I left after 2012, then I came back for two years, I was with Kieran for two years, I did the U20s for two years.

“People were kind of funny, how I walked away after two years – they asked why I wouldn’t do a third year and try to win three U20s in a row but I just felt it was an opportunity for somebody else to be there.”

Such an attitude is entirely in keeping with the self-awareness Ryan has always displayed, honoured to be in such a role but knowing it was part of a bigger picture.

RESET

If there was a drawback, it was the goldfish-bowl focus on the manager – he could have undertaken it again for three more years but it’s the kind of commitment that needs a mental reset.

“To be honest, three years was too much for me to commit to,” he says, “and, the minute I made the decision, the relief that was there was unbelievable. 

I knew in the lead-up to the All-Ireland final, and I definitely knew after it, that I needed a break.

“The pull of Cork hurling and the pull of the players and the feeling that you’d be leaving down them or the backroom team or management team that might want to stay on – there’s a feeling of loyalty to them.

“But, at the end of the day, the manager unfortunately is front and centre and if he hasn’t got the energy and got the drive, you have to make the call.

“I got a lovely phone-call from my good friend Kieran Kingston on Sunday morning and he said, 'If you felt like I did what I walked away, with relief, you made a good decision'. I said that I had slept thoroughly on Saturday night, probably for the first time in six or seven months.

I’m very much about my gut and I know instantly, when I told the county board, that it was the right decision.

“You’d always be feeling guilty towards the players that you were leaving down but I’ve had players on to me and players calling to my house, not to change my mind or anything, but all respectful of the decision and understanding where I was coming from.”

That respect was universal, inside and outside Cork, a rare thing for a departing manager.

“People say I should have made more enemies!” he laughs.

“Don’t get me wrong, I probably would be kind of mild-mannered to a degree, but look, back me into a corner and it’s a different animal. Yeah, yeah.

FIERY

“There was plenty of fiery days on the sideline too. Everybody wants to win but I've had different challenges in my own life and different things that go on, and I put sport into context, but at the same time winning is so important

We had players that have given unbelievable service to Cork and I felt the same way for the lads in 2016 and 2017.

“It was about trying to get these lads over the line but the stage is really competitive and whoever is the new manager, he needs to get time to bed in his own things and his own principles.

“We need to make sure that he's being supported and he's getting time to grow.”