Cork selector on how Pat Ryan approach turned it around after Limerick hammering

Irish Daily Mirror

14 hours ago

Cork selector Brendan Coleman has described the capitulation against Limerick on May 18 as 'an outlier'.
However, he said it was a chastening experience from which the group suffered, but credited manager Pat Ryan for framing the approach ahead of a critical do-or-die clash with Waterford seven days later.
Another defeat would have knocked Cork out of the Championship but instead they pulled off a six-point win to set up a Munster final rematch with Limerick, a tie they eventually came through after a dramatic penalty shootout.
'It hurt us, really,' said Coleman of that 16-point defeat eight weeks ago. 'It was an outlier, but it still hurt us.
'We had seven days to turn it around, Waterford were coming, and they had nothing to lose. We didn't forensically go through it. That was the great thing about Pat. We left Limerick and Pat knew what we had to do.
'We didn't go wide. We went quite narrow. It was Monday night, the gym session. It wasn't even video. It was just a quick gym session. There was a simple graph put up and it told the story in terms of turnovers.'
Several Cork players have spoken warmly about Ryan and the esteem in which he is held in by the group, and Coleman says it's no different among his management team.
'He's just a great people person, first and foremost, and then his knowledge of the game, his acumen for hurling is so vast. It's fantastic and he loves it.
'He can talk about hurling, he can talk American sports, he can talk politics. I suppose he's such a great relationship with the lads and he's so selfless to allow them to grow and develop and he takes great pride in that, which is a lovely trait to have.'
The Munster final success rounded off a hectic period of games for Cork and having struggled for consistent performances in the provincial series they made the most of the four-week break ahead of the All-Ireland semi-final against Dublin.
They romped to a 20-point win to reach back-to-back finals for the first time since 2006, but Coleman felt that such a display was coming in the build-up.
'We were expecting it. The four weeks was excellent. And again, we referenced the 18th of May and how bad it was. There was learnings in the three-week gap [from the win over Tipperary], in terms of what we do better. So, you know, we had that too as a reference point really. So, we took that on.
'Week one after the Munster final was low key and you could see that there was a significant effect on their energy levels so we kind of came down for a week and the three weeks from there were excellent.
'First week we were back in for a gym session and some guys were released play with the club, if I can remember correctly.
'There were club games that that week so we had reduced numbers and it was very little contact - just the skills work, short and snappy - just with the aim of getting the bodies right for the following week with a full panel, and then we went hammer and tongs for three weeks.'