Ronan McCarthy wants Cork to make an impact in the Munster Football Championship.
By Cian O'Connell
Cork manager Ronan McCarthy believes a new team of leaders can emerge in the coming years on Leeside.
McCarthy, who has forged a successful coaching career, was previously involved with Cork as a selector, but is now in charge for Saturday's interesting Munster Senior Championship semi-final clash against Tipperary at Semple Stadium.
In 2010 Cork did secure All Ireland glory, but McCarthy admits that the current crop needs to create their own identity. "I actually think we need to let that go," McCarthy says about the 2010 triumph.
"Only from the point of view that those players now would be 35 years of age, they'd be retired and we keep looking back at them. It's time to move on.
"They were a great team and some great players and great leadership. They came through a time when Cork were unsuccessful and persevered and were very successful.
"We need to move on and let this group come through. There's 30-35 players there. By any definition there's going to be leaders there, but let's give a chance to emerge and it will. It's not something we sit around talking about and so on."
When asked what Cork's target for the campaign is McCarthy insisted the focus is solely on the penultimate round in the province. "Look I started with a realistic ambition for us was to be promoted from Division Two and we didn't achieve that," McCarthy answered.
"The Super 8s sounds great. Three really good games, one at home, one away and one in Croke Park, playing regularly in the middle of the summer, it's everything you'd want to be involved in, but that's too far ahead for us really.
Cork manager Ronan McCarthy.
"It's the standard answer, but the right thing and that it's too far ahead for us to think about. We can only have one focus here and that's the Tipp game on Saturday the 26th.
"If you win that game it opens up avenues, but there's always a danger in this that you start looking too far ahead.
"Even there when people start asking me about the three-year term and building the team and developing and so on, like we've an opportunity this year. Let's see what we can do this year first.
"This could be our best opportunity that we have. Let's do the best we can, let's focus immediately on the Tipp game and go from there. Absolutely we'd love to get there, but let's not get ahead of ourselves."
Ultimately it has been a disappointing stint for Cork, who did supply glimpses of their potential during a thrilling Round 4 All Ireland Qualifier against Mayo in 2017. "I don't think people should have been surprised," McCarthy states. "It seems a lot of the commentary is very extreme. Look there are very good players in Cork. Really, really top players.
"People I suppose shouldn't have been that surprised by the performance. I think the key thing is, you know we'll just take Mayo you say, Mayo were able to perform at that level in if you say four big games in a year, they'll perform like that in certainly three and a half or three and three quarters of them.
"That's an element we have to try to bring to us that every time we go out in a big match we're performing at that level or near that level on a consistent basis.
"There's no quick fix either. A lot of people are hanging their hat on the Mayo game last year, they won't be talking about if we don't qualify for the Munster final."
