THERE is plenty of West Cork involvement in the Cork football masters team that will face London in the All-Ireland semi-final this Saturday (2pm) in Annanough GAA club at Vicarstown in Laois.<\/p>\n
The local players involved are St Oliver Plunkett\u2019s John Paul O\u2019Driscoll, Bandon\u2019s Conor Sugrue, Flor Crowley from O\u2019Donovan Rossa, Flor O\u2019Sullivan of Goleen and Urhan man Flor Harrington.<\/p>\n
Galway and Antrim face off on the other side of the draw.<\/p>\n
The Cork masters have called upon the likes of 2010 All-Ireland winners Pearse O\u2019Neill, Nicholas Murphy and John Miskella in the last couple of years, but this trio all have club commitments this year.<\/p>\n
For Skibbereen man Flor Crowley, this has been an enjoyable experience.<\/p>\n
\u2018When we were in our 20s, winning in Gaelic football was the be all and end all. Win a game and you\u2019re happy for the week. Lose a game and you\u2019re down for the week. Now, with families, kids and other commitments, you just enjoy the day you have and for the 60 minutes you are still able to play,\u2019 Crowley told this week\u2019s Star Sport Podcast.<\/p>\n
\u2018After the game, it\u2019s about enjoying each other\u2019s company. Going for somewhere to eat after. Our manager Tony Leahy has the vibe right. He has the experience and the pedigree. The training is enjoyable, being all ball work.\u2019<\/p>\n
There are those who make a big effort to play, too, with Urhan\u2019s Flor Harrington being a prime example.<\/p>\n
\u2018Flor Harrington makes the long trip from Beara. He\u2019s our wise head, our football sage. We had a challenge game last week and he captained the side. We won that game so he has a 100 percent record. It would be great to have more players involved,\u2019 Crowley explained.<\/p>\n
\u2018I\u2019m lucky to be based in the city. It\u2019s not a massive commitment for me to make training. Flor O\u2019Sullivan from Goleen is too, but it would be great to have more. If anyone is interested, get onto us. It would be great to have more involved.\u2019<\/p>\n
Cork beat Laois 3-13 to 1-9 in the quarter-final, while also defeating the likes of Clare, Leitrim\/Longford along the way. They narrowly lost to Kerry and Limerick too.<\/p>\n
The masters GAA competitions are for over-40s and play under the old rules with unlimited subs. It\u2019s an age group that has the likes of Bernard and Alan Brogan lining out for Dublin and Stephen O\u2019Neill for Tyrone.<\/p>\n
The Cork boss this year is St Finbarr\u2019s man Tony Leahy, who led the Cork U21s to the All-Ireland title in 2007, with secretary Sean Horgan doing a bit of coaching too.<\/p>\n
\u2018The pleasure I\u2019m getting out of it is unreal,\u2019 Leahy explained.<\/p>\n
\u2018We have a panel of 28 and get them all together. You start with one team and then you interject with subs. Each lad gives their ten minutes and when you\u2019re tired, they put their hand up and we\u2019ll get someone else to come in. It\u2019s not a case of if you don\u2019t start, you\u2019re not the best player in the team. It\u2019s about trying to manage it.<\/p>\n
\u2018We\u2019re on the right trajectory. We have lost games by a point or two but it was all our own undoing. All I can say is onwards and upwards.\u2019<\/p>\n
The Cork masters football squad includes Cian Conway (Buttevant), Will Sliney (Russell Rovers), Aidan Corkery (Donoughmore), Tom Sheahan (Ballyclough), Niall O\u2019Keeffe (Russell Rovers), Brian O\u2019Regan (Kinsale), Denis O\u2019Mahoney (Grenagh), Eoin Weldon (Nemo Rangers), Kevin Mullins (Mitchelstown), Brian Twomey (Nemo Rangers), John Paul O\u2019Driscoll (St Oliver Plunkett\u2019s), Tom Kenneally (Araglen), Thomas Fehan (Liscarroll Churchtown Gaels), Jerry Kerins (Nemo Rangers), Brian Dennehy (Russell Rovers), Paddy O\u2019Keeffe (St John\u2019s), Kieran Stone (Nemo Rangers), Conor O\u2019Keeffe (Lyre), John O\u2019Keeffe (Nemo Rangers), Diarmuid Lynch (Mitchelstown), Ger O\u2019Neill (Glanworth), Conor Sugrue (Bandon), Stephen Feeney (Nemo Rangers), Flor Crowley (O\u2019Donovan Rossa), Tadhg Lyons (Nemo Rangers), Flor Harrington (Urhan), Paudie Cahill (Glenville), Flor O\u2019Sullivan (Goleen), Neil Corkery (St John\u2019s) and Danny Kiely (Ballyphehane).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THERE is plenty of West Cork involvement in the Cork football masters team that will face London in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-600347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}