Cork footballer, Mark Collins.
By John Harrington
Cork football team manager, Keith Ricken, is still hopeful that Mark Collins will make himself available for selection this year.
The 31-year-old veteran has opted out of the panel for now, but Ricken has kept the communication lines open and hopes to chat to the Castlehaven club-man again at the end of this month.
“I would hope Mark would be (available),” says Ricken. “From what I had heard before I ever took over, Mark had indicated that he wasn't going to play. I've met Mark a couple of times and he has other stuff on, personal stuff, and things like that and we have agreed to talk again at the end of this month.
“Mark would be a great addition to us. He's a great guy and has been a great servant to Cork football. But, like, these guys are all amateurs like myself, all volunteers who are giving their time. They have other stuff on.
“If there's an appetite there from Mark at the end of this month I think we'd love to see him come back in and train with the lads and see how he gets on. And if that appetite is there can he fight for a place with it like ever other player?"
Ricken confirmed today that three other experienced players – Ruairi Deane, Michael Hurley, and Sean White – aren’t currently part of his panel which he describes as a fluid one.
“We're there since the eight of December, that's the first time we got together with fellas. We haven't seen everybody and for one reason or another the panel has been very fluid. But, at the moment, they're (Deane, Cahalane, and White) not in for training.
“The way I see it and the way I have it, the Cork panel is a snapshot. It's not a panel you put out at the start of the year and you keep that as your panel. The Cork panel is a snapshot of the best players in Cork at that particular moment in time as we see it, as the selectors would see it.
“That's it at the moment. We're looking at young lads at the moment and we're looking at older lads at the moment and we have these lads in training and the others are available as well.”
Cork football manager, Keith Ricken.
Ricken used 41 players in the McGrath Cup campaign that ended with defeat to Kerry on Saturday, 21 of which were playing senior inter-county football for the first time.
The match-day panel for Sunday’s Allianz Football League Division 2 clash with Roscommon will be drawn from those 41, but Ricken anticipates other players will also come into the reckoning as the season progresses.
“You've probably seen most of the guys that we have available for the Roscommon game at some point. We have the Barrs (St. Finbarr’s) lads obviously. We'll have three or four of them involved and how they'll be after their championship will determine. We've left them alone to concentrate on their championship which is important.
“Basically we have a number of guys who are on the long-term injury list. Like Killian O'Hanlon, Aidan Browne, Conor O'Callaghan, lads like that who are on a different recovery process so they've a good while before they come back yet.
“We've a number of guys on the short-term, and then we've a number of guys who picked up injuries in the past couple of weeks with the Colleges and so on and so forth and we haven't see them yet. The likes of Brian Hartnett and lads like that, they picked up injuries.”
