Cappoquin clubman Donal O'Rourke has served as Cork senior hurling coach for the past two seasons. He will be on the sideline alongside Pat Ryan for Saturday's All Ireland Preliminary Quarter Final against Offaly.
The former Waterford camogie manager got the coaching bug when he was a teenager. "I've been coaching since I was 15 in Cappoquin, taking various different teams at underage. Michael 'Magoo' Murray, who is well known around the county, started me out. He was heavily involved in the underage set-up in Cappoquin in the late 90s and early 2000s. He gave me an opportunity. I learned from the late Mickey Lacey. He would be my idol. I took so much from him. I had a real grá for it from an early age. I owe Waterford camogie a great gratitude because they were the first people to offer me something outside of my club."
O'Rourke and Cork manager Pat Ryan go way back. "I know Pat with a long time. I played with Sarsfields in 2004 and 2005 when I was living in Cork so I got to know Pat really well. Pat was a player and I was a player. We became very good friends and we kept in close contact. We would have been trashing out ideas about coaching, helping each other out and getting advice off each other. We developed a strong bond."
After making it out of the Munster round robin, Cork have high hopes for the rest of the summer. "There's no point hiding behind it, it's to go all the way, that's our ambition. But we're not looking beyond the 70 minutes on Saturday. We're not there to make up the numbers, it's to go all the way, it's to give everything we have in every game from here to wherever it takes us. It's the 70 minutes on Saturday that we're totally focusing on. That's our main priority at the minute."
Listen back to the full interview with Donal O'Rourke from Friday's Lár Na Páirce show.
