By John Harrington

Cork football manager, Ronan McCarthy, insists shielding his players from criticism hasn’t been a burden.

They’ve shipped plenty of it from their own supporters in recent times after heavy defeats in last year’s Championship to Kerry and Tyrone were followed this spring by relegation to Division Three of the Allianz Football League.

But McCarthy believes a lot of the criticism is ‘noise’ that the players can detach themselves relatively easy from.

“I had to protect myself first maybe,” said McCarthy wryly of the criticism that has come the team’s way.

“Look, not really. You see one of the things here is, some people are out just to have a go, and there are people who are making comments who are people with a good knowledge of the game and good insight into the game.

“You wouldn’t have to agree, but you wouldn’t be stupid enough to ignore what everybody is saying. You have to make that judgement in relation to is the criticism a person is making a valid point?

“Some of the analysis is fair, some of it is just noise and people wanting to be heard. You have to kind of detach yourself from that. In terms of protecting the players…I didn’t go out of my way to do it.

“One of the issues here is, when the players leave training and everything else they are exposed with the way things are now.

“Whether you are winning or losing, your advice to players now would be to stay off social media and stay away from it basically.

“If they follow that, be it positive or negative comments they won’t get too fazed either way.”

McCarthy is adamant that relegation from Division Two of the Allianz Football League in the Spring won’t have knocked his team’s confidence ahead of this year’s Championship.

“No. We went up to Armagh and won on the last day of the league. That was overlooked, probably, because we were relegated.

“Armagh are a good side so to go up there and win away was good. There was a lot riding on it and it was a real pressure game and, considering the injuries we had beforehand and the ones we incurred during the game, it was good to come away from it with a win.

“There was a natural break afterwards where lads go away to their clubs and then you come back and look forward.”

McCarthy says his players now want to make amends for that relegation by having a Championship to remember this Summer.

“They do,” he said. “Every player and manager also knows that if we have a strong run in the championship this year, it is a bit like the Galway hurlers when they were in Division 1B, suddenly being Division 1B wasn’t an issue any more because they had gone on and won the All-Ireland.

“I think we could have a strong run in the championship and then people won’t get too excited about what league we’re in. Every player knows that you can hit a Super 8 or an All-Ireland semi-final and, if you do, thoughts of relegation from Division 2 will be a long way back.

“We’ve a lot of work to do before we get there.”