Speaking on The Sideline Eye Podcast this week, former Armagh player, manager and assistant manager hailed the professionalism of the current group of Armagh players.
McCorry was involved as Kieran McGeeney’s right hand man for the previous three seasons but stepped away at the beginning of this year.
The Burren boss praised the positive influence Aidan Forker has on the group and spoke of the strong leaders Armagh have among their ranks.
“Whenever I first came in, he (Forker) was… He’d always be one of the leaders in the group. A lot of people say he’d be the automatic captain to lead this Armagh side.
Rory (Grugan) was a great captain when I was there as well. Forker is a captain anyway in many peoples eyes the way he leads on the field.
It’s not so much even now-a-days about having a captain, it’s about having leaders in the right areas. Oisin O’Neill is a young leader coming through as well, driving the team forward”.
McCorry suggests that the culture within the group is very player driven and it’s the leaders who take the responsibility to drive each other on.
“If you take all those guys that I mentioned, the Grugan’s, the Forker’s, the Campbell’s, the Oisin O’Neill’s, the Niall Grimley’s, all those guys really… over the last three years from what I’ve seen of them, their training regime is a self-imposed professionalism”.
“It’s not something that, people think Kieran McGeeney has a big stick here and is beating these guys into making sure they eat the right diet, and they have the right hydration and that they go to the gym seven nights a week and they train early in the morning, there’s none of that”.
“In fact, I was quite surprised whenever I went in at the start, the players were the ones that were driving a lot of that themselves.
Not because Kieran wasn’t doing it, because he didn’t need to do it, because that’s the way they were”.
Aidan Forker is of course one of the main leaders on the field of play but McCorry also recognises the work that goes on off the field as well.
“Hiss (Forker) whole attitude to training and as a person, this is a big, big factor in a lot of the county players, it’s not so much what they’re like on the football field but what they’re like off the field and what they do for the community.
It’s the modern-day player, it’s the way it is with a lot of the teams. You’ve heard a lot of talk about the Dubs and how much the Dubs do outside of football”.
