PAT RYAN insisted he has no interest in ‘pulling strokes’ after the Cork boss was quizzed about the culture of naming dummy teams that continues to pervade the GAA.
Now in his third year in charge, Ryan has consistently fielded the same side announced to the public on the Thursday evening before games.
That trend was briefly bucked for last summer’s All-Ireland SHC quarter-final against Dublin, when illness forced Rob Downey out.
Ryan, whose charges face the Dubs again in Saturday semi-final, said: “I don’t want to be telling the players, ‘Don’t say this now to anyone.’
“They have to go home and tell their mam and dad are they playing, are they not playing. Your friends, you’re getting texts. I find that’s only putting more pressure on them for the following week.”
In Cork, where the hurling team are under a constant microscope, Ryan reckons keeping secrets from the public would be a futile exercise.
He said: “I’m not going to question any manager who wants to put in dummy teams or doesn’t want to put in dummy teams. But realistically, bar probably Limerick, I think everything gets out of every other dressing room.
“If you look at Nickie Quaid this year, nobody knew that was coming. That shows how tight they are and that’s probably a challenge for all of us to be.
“Our training sessions aren’t closed-doors either really – to a degree. We don’t want to invite 25,000 people down. We often get a mother coming up with her kids looking for autographs and she’s sitting on the side of the field.
“Look, this isn’t my team. This is the Cork public’s team and it’s the players’ team more than anything. We try and be as straightforward as we can.”
A hamstring injury will rule Séamus Harnedy out of this weekend’s return to Croke Park.
Cormac O’Brien’s availability is uncertain due to a quad issue, while there is hope that Ger Millerick will be back from a broken finger.
Ryan’s transparency was evidenced as he lifted the lid on Cork’s injury situation early in the week instead of keeping his cards close to his chest until shortly before throw-in.
The Rebels gaffer said: “I think it’s dishonest to the players themselves. You can talk about the panel and you can talk about the strength of it and the belief that you have in everybody else.
“But if you’re pretending that Joe Bloggs is playing before someone, you have a player going home then and he’s telling his mam and dad he’s starting because he can’t tell them that Séamus Harnedy is playing before him. How’s he going to come off the bench then and perform?”
It was put to Ryan that he could have ‘pulled a stroke’ before this year’s National League final by keeping the involvement of Brian Hayes under wraps after the forward made an unexpectedly swift recovery from a knee injury.
But he insisted: “I don’t believe in pulling strokes. We’ll turn up, we’ll man up, we’ll go at you and leave the opposition do the same to us.
“It’d be selling a disservice to myself, the selectors and our coach, who’s brilliant, Donal O’Rourke, that we can’t decide 45 minutes before the game that, ‘Oh, they’re playing this fella, they’re bringing in this fella, he’s going in centre-forward, how’s this going to work?’
“If we haven’t talked all those scenarios out, we’re not doing our job properly.”
