WHILE they didn’t bring the sun home with them from their four-day training camp in the Algarve, the Cork footballers will hope to reap the benefits of the trip in the weeks and months to come.
The Rebels spent four days at the highly-rated Quinta do Lago resort, and Cork football manager John Cleary feels the benefits of this warm-weather training camp can reenergise the group heading into the final block of league games before the championship rolls around.
‘The big benefit of a trip like this is you get a block of work done, from the field to the gym to video analysis to tactical work, and you have the total concentration of players for those few days,’ Cleary told The Southern Star.
‘Particularly in these shortened seasons, a trip like this can be very beneficial. If you remember how it was before, you could fit in different blocks of training mid-season, but the condensed season now means you don’t have too many opportunities to fit in a training camp like this.
‘We had this planned for a while and the idea was to get a block of work done that normally you can’t do at home. During a normal week, and it’s the same everywhere, fellas are running and racing to and from training after a day’s work, so we decided last year, if it was possible, that we would get a block of work done away so everyone could concentrate on football for a couple of days, and that’s how it worked out.’
Back on home soil now – and back to grey skies and wet pitches – the immediate focus is on Cork’s trip to Páirc Tailteann this Saturday for a crunch Division 2 league game with Meath (2pm). Two wins in a row, against Fermanagh and Kildare, have lifted the mood in the camp and also given Cleary’s side a real chance of avoiding relegation to Division 2 – that was the bleak picture facing the team after they lost their opening three games. The Royal County are just above Cork in the table, but still have an outside shot of promotion so they’ll target a win that could plunge the Rebels back into the relegation fight. But Cork know one more win will guarantee safety.
‘All we are looking ahead to now is Meath. We will see on Saturday evening where we are going into the final game against Armagh,’ Cleary said.
‘We know we backed ourselves into a corner by losing those first three games but we are fighting hard now to get out of it. Thankfully we have two wins in a row and this gives us a fighting chance going into the last two games.’
The Cork boss also feels they can build on the wins against Fermanagh and Kildare, particularly the nature of them – Cork needed an injury-time Maurice Shanley goal to win away in Fermanagh and had to fight back from a poor first half to beat Kildare in the last round.
‘The two things that have been pleasing are the character and the composure,’ Cleary outlined.
‘Things didn’t go our way for all of these last two games. Against Fermanagh, they played quite well and we had to fight to get back into that – it was the character and composure in injury time that saw us get the goal and ultimately the win.
‘Against Kildare we conceded two early goals, but we didn’t panic. In the second half we settled down, got ahead, and maybe we didn’t finish as well as we would have liked, but the main thing was to get the two points. We’re in a far better position now compared to where we were after the first three games.’
Cork will need to plan without defender Rory Maguire who will miss the next two games with a hamstring injury.
‘Rory is out for three to four weeks,’ he confirmed. ‘The way the games are, if you are missing for two weeks you miss a few games. He just nicked a hamstring the last day; that’s usually a month out.
‘The good news is that Micheál Martin and Killian O’Hanlon were able to train when we were away so they are back in the frame. Kevin O’Donovan is a small bit behind them but he is back in full training. That doesn't mean they are fully ready to go; for fellas who have been out for three, four or five months, it takes time to get up to speed and it’s not fair to throw them in at the deep end until they are properly ready.’
