Does that tell you more maybe than the result does about how far we've come?

I, I, I think it's just the, the level of players that we've got at this football club now that...

Sort of last year was a good group of players, but the recruitment in the summer has gone to another level.

And then I've mentioned the players like Mahamovic, Trafford, and, um, Harry Wilson hasn't quite reached the levels yet that we were thinking about.

Um, and, but plenty of time that.

But I still think, uh, Elvedi is another one who's done really well, settled in it.

So these players have gone to another level.

Is that just down to the, the, the better players or is there anything else that you're, you're sort of detecting?

No, no. let's just for anybody listening yeah just telling us what happened and you wouldn't do it unless you loved it

no it was a grounding for you you know what i mean yeah you had to go through all these sort of episodes where there was no kit or somebody had forgot to pack the socks or the shorts or anything like that.

So at least I knew if I was packing the kit bag myself, it's my fault and not anybody else's if we didn't have any kit.

And so it was a natural progression.

And then I'd got to do finishing my, I'd done my year license.

And then I got a chance to go to, with chris casper to bury i think it was his assistant manager and i was 35 and i was ready to pack in in a way i was still fit enough but i just wanted to probably thought coaching's gonna be next step i knew chris quite well so i went to colin henry and i said look colin i've got he was a manager at blackpool at the time he said i've got this opportunity and he went yeah that's fine Go and have a word with Carl Oyston, the owner, and obviously the Oyston family up there, quite sometimes strange to deal with.

And Carl said to me, he says, look, no, you can't.

I'll bring him

How much easier is it in the modern day and age to create individualised training sessions for each player? Because you have the technology now, the data, the analytics, and I assume from the scenario you're describing there in India, it was probably more prevalent in that instance.

Yeah, I think what you've got now is as a manager and coaching staff, normally it used to be yourself and an assistant manager.

And if you were lucky, you might have a first team coach.

You might have one S&C coach.

You might have one, maybe two physios.

Football has moved on now and you just see the number of people that are in the dugouts now at the top level.

And a lot of other staff are sat in the stands as well.

Give us an idea of what a recovery session looks like in the modern game.

How would you, how would you describe that state?

I don't, I don't see the group of players that we've got being complacent or overconfident.

There may be just...

I don't know.

The, the mentality just sort of changed from being really on the edge of making sure we don't concede every time Chelsea come forward, you're really at it, to have been 2-0 up.

It's like the game last year, Chelsea did exactly the same thing, didn't they, when they were 2-0 up at half time in the league game down there and we got back to 2-2.

Um, but yeah, it's just that mentality.

So can you take us through that game from that point?

How important is that at Leeds?

It's massive, and I go back to when I was a young player at Leeds.

Gordon Strachan was an unbelievable player, but he was a strong character in the dressing room and a leader both on and off the pitch.

So he, he served a purpose for Howard Wilkinson to control the dressing room, control decisions on the pitch.

And I took that into my m- spell as a manager because I learned that some players couldn't sort of handle it.

Mark Irvin would give the V sign to the Kop one day and [laughs] Ne- was quickly out the door, wasn't he? Um, that's a side story anyway.

But then one of my first signings was Richard Naylor.

Mm.

But in terms of your prep, do you think it's maybe a tiny bit of a hindrance?

Look, look, pre-season ultimately is a means to an end.

The one thing you want to do is get everybody as fit as possible and making sure you have as many bodies fit for that first game of the season for selection.

So that's the big thing about it.

Over the years, I think the top teams, Premier League, Championship, play a lot more high-profile games.

Obviously, the tours are there for everybody.

You've seen Aston Villa have been Indonesia, teams have been in Asia, America, all over.

So, so what does it take to last at Leeds?

And the academy as well is I suppose a shining light of Cork City as well and the players that have come through it you can even see that in the first thing this year the amount of young players that are there and good young players

Look exactly that you've seen a number of players that have left to go to clubs in England and Europe and When you see Jadon the other week play for the national team, it's like huge respect for the football club.

And it's what it has to keep doing.

And if even players coming through the academy, if you're selling them on and making money, well, that's a big... box ticked because they'd go into bigger clubs along the way but even if you're bringing your players through and they play the next 15 years in the League of Ireland you've still given somebody a career and you can treat that as equally satisfying to the same as somebody who's gone for 500 million euros or whatever so it's a huge catchment area and that's why it's so important to get these younger players through in the door to start with then give them the education and the development and then obviously the opportunity and that's a big thing over the last few years Even now, if anybody's in any doubt of wanting their kids to sign for Cork City, because they think they might not have a pathway, well, you'll have to look this year.

The number of lads that have made their debuts, Gillian, obviously, at 16, played nearly every game.

Donald's just got in younger.

And then the benches have been full of younger ones, which...

Is it tricky to attract players to Cork City? Is it tough to have players in England to

simon uh nice to meet you nice to talk to you how are you sir yeah good all good thank you um rewind the clock a little bit take us back into how this all came about

I've spoken to Dermot over the last couple of years about some different things and then he sort of approached me and asked me would I get involved with a club and sort of come and use my experience of being in football nearly 40 years now playing and managing different clubs, different levels, just to have a look at the club in general and try and pass on a little bit of advice of what things I think that needs to happen behind the scenes, on the pitch, et cetera, to improve the club, but also to make it more stable and not sort of try and go through the process of a promotion, a relegation, a promotion, because it's a big football club and had fantastic history and tradition in the past.

The last few years have not been ideal.

So when Dermot asked me to do that, I came over, I had six weeks, came over two, three days, spoke to a lot of people behind the scenes and got a feel of the whole area, the football club, the league in general, and did a report for him and the rest of the owners.

And then he asked me if I'd come back in and do some more like around the recruitment but be a mentor for Liam a little bit and Barry and sort of a sounding board for everybody so it worked with where I'm in what I'm doing at this moment in time with the rest of my work that I do in football so it was a great

opportunity and I've really enjoyed it So what were your first impressions of the club and I suppose where were the areas that you identified that needed to be improved immediately?

Yeah look I think I think sort of the big thing was that there was no real sort of um foundations as such that everything was a little bit reactive rather than being proactive trying to get ahead of the game so behind the scenes there wasn't as much infrastructure in certain roles that a football club the size of Cork City should be having that is the norm probably with a lot of the clubs in Ireland as well as in the UK where I've worked in so obviously I identified that to have a director of football would be a good opportunity for the club Obviously, and Dermot appointed Liam, which is a fantastic appointment because Liam knows the club, played for the club and got the club at heart, but he's very hard working and I've enjoyed working with him over the last few weeks and that, but it was just the whole... elements of what I think needed to make the club a lot more professional and when you have more football people involved in it it helps along the way so again with helping the process of appointing Barry in the first place and then working with Barry working with Liam and working with David we've got probably a few more football people in the key roles that are needed in any football club to be fair

Yeah.

That was sort of when I was about, uh, 15, or 12, 15, something like that.

Um, but in terms of the performance, look, I was, when I was talking about it, I thought it was a game that Chelsea had to win and we wanted to win because there was more pressure on, on them getting to the final.

Their season was riding on it.

And I just felt that first half that we froze a little bit.

The occasion got to the players.

We give the ball away, away too cheaply.

What is it that you're saying to them, um, a- ahead of that game? How do you get them ready for that space, for that, for that intensity?

in the, in the madness of it?

[chuckles] Yeah.

Look, I- even when Max went down, the first thing I was doing, I was planning for half-time, five, ten minutes before.

And then I was also planning if the worst-case scenario came along, that we went one-nil down, what, what I would be doing.

So I was trying to be so controlled in my emotions and my forward thinking of what we're gonna do.

And obviously, when Johnny scores, we, we...

I made a couple of substitutions, and we went three-four-two, I think, to try and get back into it after they went one-nil up.

And he turned it.