RENEWING FAITH OF THE OLD FAITHFUL
Egan must consider risk of burnout as he bids to keep up momentum of Offaly revival
CORMAC EGAN is proof that success comes to those who are too busy to go looking for it. The 18 year-old Tullamore clubman, with his flame-haired mullet, chirpy disposition and electrifying skill-set has emerged as one of Gaelic games’ brightest emerging talents, and the most readily identifiable of Offaly’s Under 20 football champions.
He is that good that he has the diary to prove it.
Since June 30, when he was the captain of the county minors that lost the delayed 2020 Leinster minor final to Meath, he has been eligible to play in 21 games.
Over 90 days, that is one match every four days, there or thereabouts, and while he has not taken up every invite, he has played 16 games, which amounts to one game in every five days, which is still at the high end for contact sports like football and hurling.
‘Young kids are looking up to us as role models now’
By the time this year is done, he will have played in nine different championships — he was also part of the 2020 Offaly minor hurling team that lost to Kilkenny just four days after the loss to Meath, and he has not lost a single game since.
And outside of the U20 county team, he has also played in last year’s Offaly minor and U20 club championship (winning both), this year’s U20 club championship in both codes, as well as senior football, and will shortly tog out for the senior hurlers in the county ‘B’ championship.
Indeed, within 96 hours of beating Roscommon in the All-Ireland U20 final, he had added the 2020 minor county title with Tullamore, which required winning two games in four days.
He would follow that up by making his senior championship debut with Tullamore and an U20 championship match with the club, which meant inside 12 days, he played six championship games. It was a legacy of the havoc the pandemic wreaked with fixtures, but it also is a schedule that reminds the GAA’s brightest and best are sometimes in danger of getting far too much too soon.
Egan, who started his degree in Economics and Finance in UCD this week, is well aware of the threat that can bring, and his father, Kieran, who played minor for the county in both codes as a teenager but never progressed to senior, is the voice he listens to most.
‘He’s dealt with what I’m dealing with at the minute. He knows what it’s like, having coaches pulling out of you. So he makes sure that he’s minding me.
‘We go at it sometimes when I want to play a match, and he doesn’t want me to play. But he has my best interests at heart at the end of the day. I have to just listen to him. He knows. He’s been there before.
‘I want to go out and play every game. I want to go out for every training. But it’s not possible. It’s going to hurt me in the long run if I continue playing two or three games a week,’ admits Egan.
And for Offaly, it is essential that Egan, and his fellow U20 team-mates, stay the full course if the county is to fully cash in on the promise of this year.
Last Sunday, on a poignant afternoon in Tullamore that marked the passing of Paddy Fenning and the 50th anniversary of Offaly’s All-Ireland victory, the 1971 team were reunited with the Sam Maguire.
This summer’s U20 win was Offaly’s first All-Ireland in any grade since the U21s won in 1998. It has for the first time in an age raised the possibility that Irish sport’s most coveted trophy might manage more than a daytrip to the county in the future.
‘Over the last few years it kind of felt like you were playing football just to play with the club, there was no point even playing with the county,’ admits Egan.
‘It was like you were just going out to just get beat. Well, now it seems like there is a bit of hope back in the county. We have obviously this U20 team coming through and it feels like if everything’s put in the right place we could actually succeed in a few years’ time but it’s going to take time obviously.
‘We can’t expect it overnight but something like that U20 championship, it’s given a lot of people some hope so it’s been a big addition.’
At last weekend’s event, there was a charming photograph that captured Egan deep in conversation with Willie Bryan, the 1971 winning captain, and Martin Furlong, the legendary Tullamore goalkeeper who played in all three of the county’s All-Ireland triumphs.
It was a humbling experience for all involved.
‘They’re the people my parents looked up to, they were the superstars of that time when they were growing up and we didn’t have anything really to follow in an Offaly jersey, who were like that and who were playing in Croke Park, winning All-Irelands. ‘Just to meet the likes of Martin and Willie, boys who have won All-Irelands was quite mind-blowing.
‘You shake Martin Furlong’s hand and you realise he has however many All-Irelands in the bag and they were all telling us just to keep at it. They were telling us how we had given them something, which is crazy when you think about it,.
‘They said, that we’ve given them a bit of hope, and that’s what it’s all about. They think now that maybe they can see something happen for Offaly again.
‘A lot of them were saying they never thought they’d see Offaly winning an All-Ireland again. That was the way it seemed in the county. There was no hope, there was no real ambition, we didn’t really feel like there was anything to look forward to.
‘Well, now, there are young kids going out and, it is a bit corny, but they look at us as maybe role models or and they want to go out and play in Croke Park. They want to play on Offaly development squads.
‘When we were going up, you went in and played if you got asked and you weren’t too pushed about it. But now there is real hope and there is ambition.’