O’Dwyer: U-20 success gave minors confidence
CORK manager Bobbie O’Dwyer beamed from ear to ear last Sunday in the bowels of Croke Park after his minor football side pulled off the comeback of all comebacks to win the All Ireland title – and in so doing collect Cork’s second major underage football title of the year.
O’Dwyer’s charges looked dead and buried after 64 minutes however a brilliant goal from Conor Corbett sealed a draw and the young rebels would ultimately out power their opponents to claim some very important silverware for a county definitely on the up.
“It’s a superb end to the year for us, two All-Ireland wins going back to Leeside is fantastic. That may not have been what you thought at the start of the year. It’s been outstanding.
“I made the point to a few of ye earlier on about confidence and momentum; we definitely got the benefit of the U20s going very, very well and that lifted our spirits and we saw that we had an opportunity too.”
Role models in the game are crucial according to O’Dwyer and he felt that this current bunch of young stars have been more that playing their part in that regard.
“We’ve been at a few camps over the last few weeks with kids, kids of 8, 9 and 10, they now have heroes, they now have a Conor Corbett or a Jack Lawton or a Ryan O’Donovan or a Michael O’Neill to look up to.
“You can see it, all during the month of August you go around to the summer camp and the young lads playing football, and they now have young heroes to look up to. Every county needs that, that bit of success.”
O’Dwyer will be in line for plenty praise after bridging what was a 19 year gap however he was more than willing to share the love and spread some of the praise to where he felt it is deserved.
“I don’t think it’s any accident that Conor Counihan was appointed the co-ordinator for the GAA down in Cork this year, Conor has pulled an awful lot of strands together within the GAA family down in Cork.
“It’s absolutely no coincidence that the results are starting to go our way because from the point of view of being a manager of a county team, having Conor there, outside of the benefit of his knowledge, but being able to link the parts within the Cork GAA family that need to be linked and being able to remove obstacles that may or may not be there, it has been a huge benefit to the county already.”
While the manager was keen to point out that this was a team effort when pressed he did have special praise for one young man and is clear that we have not seen the last of the minor captain.
“Conor Corbett is a guy with incredible talent, and I genuinely don’t want to single out any individual player because we have a panel of 38 but that guy is an outstanding footballer and he’ll go on to play an awful lot of football yet.”
Another player also grabbed the manager’s eye and from the bench played a major part in what would ultimately be a huge day for cork football.
“Ryan (O’Donovan) I suppose is very unlucky not to start in our team because Ryan is an outstanding footballer. We try to keep Ryan as close to the end as we possibly can because we know he’s going to score.
“I’m not sure what he finished up scoring, 1-2, I mean that made the difference, that and getting the ball into Conor Corbett.”
From the minute Cork equalised they looked destined to win but this season didn’t start all that well and the head tactician was full of praise for the way his side improved throughout what at times was a difficult campaign.
“These lads shipped a fair shellacking the first day down in Cork in the first round of the championship. The resilience they showed the following week to go up and play a very good Clare team above in Ennis, to say you can pick up a team that have lost a game by 16 points and for them to give the performance that they did above in Clare, it showed absolutely tremendous character.
“We’ve been involved with them since they were U14. We’ve had four years on the go with them and that’s one thing that can never be questioned about them, their character, we’re just so proud of them.”