Griffin: It’s all positive at Rebels
SHANE GRIFFIN says he’s revelling in the positivity he’s experienced at Cork City compared to life across the water.
Griffin, 23, is loving to leap to competitive senior football after years of grinding it out at underage level with Reading.
The Cork man, a former under-21 international, joined the Leesiders 13 months ago and is enjoying life at the top of the Premier Division.
Griffin said: “They (Cork) tell you what you can do instead of when I was in England, playing development football, and it was a case of what you can’t do or what you are not doing right or why you are not in the first team.
“When I came back here it was, ‘Oh, you’re good at that’ and, ‘You can do that well’.
“It’s a different way of looking at things and it works really well for me.
“You can play development football and I played it for three or four years but it got to a stage where it was so repetitive that it didn’t really matter who won.
“There were behind closed doors games that were really like training games and neither team really wants to win.
“If you didn’t, you would hear, ‘Ah, it’s development football’.
“It’s good for younger lads making the jump into first team football but it gets to the stage where it’s too much and you need to play men’s football.”
City boss John Caulfield described Griffin as “outstanding” to date. “He’s loving every minute,” said Caulfield.
“It took him a bit of time to break into the side but he’s kicked on big time and his pace is a huge asset. He’s very solid.”