Colin Corkery has revealed he used to thrive on players writing him off due to his size, an attribute which he saw as a major advantage.
Corkery had a long and successful career with both Cork and Nemo Rangers, as he won four Munster Championships at inter-county level, along with five Cork titles, four Munster titles and two All-Ireland titles at club level.
Always one of the tallest players on the pitch at 6ft 4ins, Corkery also had plenty of weight to go along with his big frame, which some assumed was detrimental to his game.
The Cork man has stressed that the opposite was true however, as he explained on Colm ‘Wooly’ Parkinson’s Smaller Fish GAA podcast that he used his size to his advantage.
Colin Corkery on how he used his size to great advantage.
“The way I can describe it, it was only a comment that Tyson Fury made there in a documentary recently. When he came back from his weight problems, this guy gave him diets and all this kind of stuff,” Corkery started.
“But when he went into a fight, he felt he was too light on the punches and all that. I felt the exact same. If I didn’t have that certain weight I don’t think I could have done certain things; shrugs fellas off the way I used to.
“When I got to a weight that I was comfortable with and kept it at that, I felt very good, very fit, even though I probably didn’t look like it. But I was able to do exactly what I wanted to do on the field.
“That was one of my advantages. Honest to God, I used to go down to league games and the opposition were saying, ‘Jesus, look at the size of him. He won’t be able to run today.’
“I used to love all that because once I got on the ball they couldn’t get it off me. I had that advantage all the time, to shrug players off. But I always had that speed over 10, 20 metres that I could get away from fellas as well.”
“I used to go down to league games and the opposition saying Jesus look at the size of him, he won’t be able to run today…i used to love all that”
Colin Corkery saw his weight as an advantage rather than a disadvantage.
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— Smaller Fish GAA (@SmallerFishGAA) September 28, 2022
The Nemo Rangers man won an All-Star in 1993.
Corkery’s talents were quickly recognised when he burst onto the inter-county scene in 1993, as he was named in that year’s All-Stars team after his first season with Cork.
While that proved to be the only All-Star of his career, he played a crucial role for Cork for 12 years and was of vital importance to Nemo Rangers in two All-Ireland winning seasons.
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