Aisake Ó hAilpín will line out at full forward for Cork against Tipperary in their Munster SHC quarter-final on Sunday and his old club manager says that it is no surprise to him.
Joe O'Leary was in charge of the Na Piarsaigh club side when they won the Cork hurling crown in 2004 and he had Aisake, Seán Óg and Setanta Ó hAilpín to call on.
23-year-old Aisake then spent four years with Melbourne AFL club Carlton and only returned in December, but former Cork selector O’Leary always believed he would line out for the Rebels one day.
‘The minute I knew he was coming back home I knew he’d be back in the Cork team,’ says O’Leary in today’s Irish Times.
‘Even when he left in 2004 it was very much on the cards that he would have been part of the Cork panel in 2005, had he not gone. I mean when he first said he was going to Australia we were all very surprised, but then it was the adventure of a lifetime for him.
‘But he’s lost nothing. He always had a hurley with him out there (in Australia) and since he’s come back he’s been working very, very hard on it. He’s got a few good club and challenge matches under his belt as well. And he has all the attributes he needs to be successful.
‘The big thing for Cork is that they’ve lost three big players in Joe Deane, Diarmuid O’Sullivan and also Brian Murphy. You don’t replace players like that overnight, but to have someone like Aisake to come in there is a great fillip to the team.’
Aisake represented Cork in both minor football and hurling before he left for Australia, but O’Leary reckons hurling was where his real talent lay: ‘Hurling was always his number-one game. He played football too as a minor, but never too seriously. It was more something he played because everyone else his age was playing it as well.
‘And at senior level for us anyway he was always in the full-forward line, either in the corner, or in full. His height (6ft 6in) is a huge advantage, obviously. But like the rest of the other Ó hAilpín brothers he’s just a great all-round athlete. You’d notice it in the way he trains, and you can see it even more now that he’s coming from a background of full-time professional training.
‘The intensity is there with him the whole time. He has that desire to be the best he possible can. That was always very evident.’
