Darragh Fitzgibbon: Sickness no longer bugging Cork hurling squad

While there may have been some nerves in the Cork camp prior to last Saturday’s All-Ireland SHC quarter-final, the volume of toilet trips beforehand were down to more than that.

Robert Downey, who has been one of the Rebels’ top performers all year, missed the win over Dublin at FBD Semple Stadium due to sickness and he wasn’t the only one affected by a bug going through the squad.

Cork midfielder Darragh Fitzgibbon, in accepting the PwC GAA/GPA Player of The Month Award for May, was asked about Downey and revealed that others had been laid low too.

“He’s fine,” he said, “he’s back in training.

“That was a thing that kind of went under the radar last Saturday. There was a bug in our camp and obviously Rob couldn’t play, but there were a couple of other guys in the dressing room who were actually getting sick before the match. A couple of guys had been up all night as well.

“It was testament to the players who were able to play and who stepped in and did a job to the best of their abilities. That made the result pleasing as well because it was just a matter of trying to win the game and get on to the next one.”

Cork struggled to fully get going in the 0-26 to 0-21 win which set up an All-Ireland semi-final clash with Limerick next Sunday week.

The early throw-in time of 1.15pm was cited as a factor and Fitzgibbon acknowledged that the health issues in the panel could also have had an effect. The key thing were Cork was to get over the line, especially as poor shooting had cost them at the quarter-final stage in 2022.
“Possibly [the bug was an issue],” he said.

FLAT

“We played in that fixture two years ago and we were extremely flat when we lost to Galway, so we spoke a lot about it in training in the week leading up to the Dublin game.

“Dublin were probably disappointed with their performance in the Leinster final and there was always going to be a reaction from them. But quarter-finals are there to be won to get back into Croke Park and that’s what we did.”

Thankfully, the issue seems to have passed fully through the squad now, with management opting to train on Wednesday night this week rather than Tuesday.

“Yeah, it looks like it has,” Fitzgibbon said, “everyone was back in training.

We just took an extra night off training just to give everyone a bit of time away from each other, trying to not let it spread through the camp.

“It’s just one of those things that could happen to anybody. It was kind of good in the way we dealt with it.

“Luke Meade was one of the guys who was sick but he just came in and fitted in seamlessly and Ciarán Joyce moved back and performed his role as well. They’re all kind of things that might go under the radar and it’s stuff that every camp tries to deal with, so it was just pleasing the way we dealt with it.”

Among those who was struggling for a period was attacker Alan Connolly. The Blackrock man had scored 4-7 from play in the Munster championship but has yet to register a score in the All-Ireland series, not helped by the sickness.

Fitzgibbon is firmly of the view that Connolly’s best form will be on show again in Croke Park when Cork try to topple the All-Ireland champions.
“Yeah, Alan was feeling unwell too,” he said.

“Alan was probably feeling unwell even before the Offaly game. He’s had a bit of a rough run of it.

“A lot has been made by some people of Alan’s last couple of performances but it won’t affect him. He’s another guy who leaves outside noise on the outside.

“He backs himself and we all back him. We know he’ll be fit and firing come Sunday week.”