Gearóid Morrissey: The Pride of Mahon
by Jack MaguireGearóid Morrissey is the Cork City captain for the upcoming season. As a Cork native, he has great pride in his club and is positive facing into the 2020 Campaign. I had a chat with Gearóid before the Shelbourne game about pre-season preparation and his hopes for the season.How are you feeling ahead of the new season?I’m excited, don’t get me wrong it’s a challenge, but every year is so it’s no different, it’s just a different type of challenge where we’re a whole new group more or less, we’re a young group so we’re eager, we’re training hard, we mean business, we’re in every day, we’re grafting, we’re trying to get better. We have Shels first game so we’re all working hard and trying to tighten up going into that and gear everything towards that first game and see how we fare.With all the changes in the squad, are you still confident things will go ok?Yeah, like all you can ask a fella is to give 100% every training session, try and get better, be good professional’s, and I think we have that in this dressing room, I think we have it in abundance, it’s a great group. For a lot of them it’s their first time playing Premier Division Football in the League of Ireland so it’s a massive opportunity, they’re chomping at the bit, they can’t wait to get going so they’re giving it absolutely everything so the standard in training is decent, the sessions that the gaffer and Joe put out for us were brilliant and we’re going into what they’re trying to tell us to do and how we’re going to play so I think we’re really looking forward to it, and as a whole I think everybody is on the same page.How are you feeling being one of the most experienced men in the squad? it’ll be no bother to you obviously.No, 100%. Like I said it’s a young squad, bar Mark McNulty and Alan Bennett I’d be the oldest. Sort of overnight there I went from about being average age to like the oldest player so bar Nults and Benno. It’s a bit strange but yeah it’s football. The dressing room in football is mad, it’s not like any other job. In the dressing room circumstances change almost on a weekly basis, it’s that quick in football, overnight everything changes, it can do so, I’m just really looking forward to it, it’s a new fresh challenge I can’t wait to get going.How has training been so far and is everyone giving 100%?Yeah, the 2nd of January we got in, and since that we bought in immediately to what Joe and the Gaffer were doing. It’s hard work and it’s a graft, we know we’ve a lot of work to do as a fresh group and a young group. You can’t fault anyone, we’re all in every day, training hard, double sessions, giving everything, being good professionals on and off the field. We’re giving everything every day and trying to improve as players.What did you think of the UCC Game friendly?The first game of pre-season is neither here nor there really because its literally just fella’s getting cobwebs. Because it’s pre-season, the day before you could be doing a running session so it’s like a normal build up to a game where the day before you’d have a light session and then you go and play the game, the day before is equally as hard and then you’re going into a game. It’s really just about getting minutes into fella’s legs. In patches during that game, we showed a couple of glimpses of good play and what we’re about and I think we built on that then.Will you be hoping to something like the goals against Finn Harps last season?Sure look, you’re always trying to put your foot through it and it’ll end up in the stands, 9 times out of 10 it’ll end up over the carpark but sure look you’ll take the ones that go into the top corner any day