The strain of juggling family life, work, training and playing has finally caught up on Cork star Brian Corcoran and he has announced his retirement from all hurling - club as well as inter-county.

Corcoran said changes in his work career meant he no longer had the time to make the huge commitment involved: ‘I have three young kids. I want to spend more time with them and not miss out… Basically, playing inter-county hurling is like having two jobs. You’re on the go from 6 a.m. until 11 p.m. at night and it’s a big strain. It’s not the second Sunday in September that’s the problem, it’s the other nine months of the year’.

Corcoran made it clear his departure from the game is amicable and he didn’t rule out a return in some capacity in the future: ‘I haven’t fallen out with the game or with the players. The older you get, the more you have to work at it. You can never say ‘never’ about coming back into the game some time in the future’.

Commenting on the recent appointment of former star Gerald McCarthy as Cork senior hurling manager, Brian Corcoran said he was disappointed that members of the existing management team, Ger Cunningham and Pat Morrissey, had not been asked to apply for the job: ‘It was a big insult not to ask them. It was a snub and showed no respect for them. It was a disgrace, to be honest.’

‘Gerald McCarthy is a great Corkman. He was a great player. He will do a great job. The players will pull together and there will be a new beginning. The players proved their commitment to Donal O’Grady and John Allen and there was a seamless transition from one manager to the next. The backroom stayed the same. However, Gerald McCarthy will now pick his own selectors, except for the Erin’s Own county champions selector, but he will bring in a new backroom team’.

Asked if the move represented a return to a more ‘traditional’ style of Cork hurling, Brian Corcoran replied that it might just be a ‘power statement from the county board They have a right to appoint a manager and the players have no issue with that’.

He accepted that there had been some criticism of Cork’s style, but the answer to that lay in the four All Ireland final appearances in a two, including two victories. Corcoran said: ‘The game of hurling is becoming more tactical. In this year’s final, Kilkenny picked a team to negate Cork’s strengths. You can’t go back to the ways of twenty years ago. Cork’s game is not about ‘short passing’. It’s about getting quality ball into the full forward line, laying it off to a player in a better position. Donal O’Grady left it up to players to play their natural games including running with the ball by the likes of the O’Connor brothers and Teddy McCarthy. The puck out strategies were to keep possession, at least 60/40 in your favour, not 50/50’.

Looking to Cork’s future, Corcoran said there are good young players coming through. ‘We haven’t had the same success at minor and under-21 as the likes of Galway or Kilkenny. That kind of success is no guarantee of senior success, but it is a help. We need a lot more work at ground level. Cork’s recent success has made a difference and you see many more kids back playing hurling compared with 1999’.

Brian Corcoran ... one of the greats of gaelic games...

Brian Corcoran was speaking at the launch of his autobiography ’Every single ball’, co-authored with The Sunday Tribune GAA Correspondent, Kieran Shannon. The book is published by Main Stream Publishing. We will have copies of it soon for one of our competitions.

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