Cork boss Pat Ryan says he took time off work for final prep - before beating Limerick
'Obviously I was confident that we would win and I knew that this week would be a really, really helter skelter week.'
Cork boss Pat Ryan has revealed how he was so confident his side would beat Limerick that he took time off work to prepare for the All-Ireland final.
Ryan steered his side to their first decider in three years with an epic two-point win over the four-in-a-row champions on Sunday and he had taken time out from his job with Pfizer either side of that game to prepare for both that and the subsequent final.
He will return to work on Monday next ahead of the game against Clare six days later as Cork chase a first title in 19 years.
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Ryan explained: “I’m on two weeks’ parental leave at the moment so it’s not too bad. So no, look, to be honest with you, I’m lucky in my job, I have good bosses and stuff like that so I took two weeks’ parental leave.
“That prep that you needed to do before Limerick needed to be done. Obviously I was confident that we would win and I knew that this week would be a really, really helter skelter week and I had that planned into it and I’ll go back to work Monday.”
He confirmed that Cork will have the same arrangements for the final, travelling by bus on the Saturday and staying in their traditional base in the Burlington Hotel.
“We found it way more relaxing than going up on the train in the morning. So we’ll travel up on the Saturday and there is the usual function that normally happens for Cork teams after All-Irelands so we’ll be staying the Sunday night as well.”
Ryan has no injury worries ahead of the final and said that preparations will not be hindered by the historic women’s soccer international between the Republic of Ireland and France which takes place at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Tuesday, July 16, despite the fact that the team train at the venue at this time of year.
“It’s not going to impede our training,” he said. “Páirc Uí Rinn next Tuesday. We kind of rotate between Páirc Uí Rinn and sometimes we go to Fota (Island) so there’ll be no issue there.”
Meanwhile, Ryan admitted that he thought that Alan Connolly’s handpass to Brian Hayes, leading to what would have been a second Cork goal in Sunday’s game, was illegal at the time, though television pictures subsequently proved that referee Thomas Walsh had made the wrong call.
Cork sub Ethan Twomey was also similarly penalised late on in the game.
Ryan added: “It’s hard, it’s very hard. At the time, I thought Alan’s was a throw personally but then when you see it back and it wasn’t a throw.
“Ethan’s wasn’t. I think Ethan’s glove gives a bit of a look that he’s throwing the ball all the time but it’s actually the glove in hand and he’s kind of long-limbed as well.
“He’s a kind of a loopy handpass and I knew his wasn’t and we’d a great ball in the middle of the field with Shane Barrett, six points up. It could have been a real changing moment.
“We were getting an opportunity to go seven points up and they were taking a free to take it back to five. I knew his wasn’t but I thought Alan’s was myself.
“I actually thought it was a free, I actually thought he was fouled coming into the ball but there were loads of those decisions.
“I thought Thomas Walsh did a fantastic job with the game as a whole. You couldn’t argue with it. He was in charge of a great spectacle of hurling.”
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