Cork has produced a long list of excellent GAA players, both male and female. However, two stand before all the rest for the legendary Dr. Con Murphy.
Dr. Murphy, a long-time volunteer within the Cork GAA community at senior level, and also with University College Cork, had little hesitation in naming both men as the greatest players he has had the pleasure to watch and interact with at the highest level.
"Larry Tompkins in football. Brian Corcoran in hurling," the Cork GAA doctor replied when asked by Joe Molloy of Off The Ball who his favourite players were.
"I thought Larry Tompkins was the best player I saw with Cork. The best player from Cork was Stephen O'Brien, subtle difference there."
Larry Tompkins
Tompkins famously originally played for county Kildare, where he was born and raised. This continued all the way up until senior level before a bust-up with the Kildare county board ended his association with the Lilywhites.
That row centred around the payment of a plane ticket back to New York where Tompkins had worked, returning for inter-county duty on the basis that he would return to the Big Apple afterwards.
Kildares loss was Cork's opportunity, and after transferring at club level to Castlehaven in Cork, Billy Morgan, the senior manager at that time convinced Tompkins to turn out for the inter-county panel.
24 July 1994. Larry Tompkins of Cork. Photo by SportsfileMorgan believed he was getting a fine player, and this is undoubtedly true.
Tompkins showed his winning attitude at the very first training session, showing up his fellow players in a series of runs used to test the fitness of the panel.
He immediately commented to Morgan that there was little chance of them beating the great Kerry and Meath sides of the day without a major improvement in their fitness levels.
Tompkins would go on to win two All-Ireland crowns with Cork, triumphing in 1989 against Mayo after losing back-to-back finals against Sean Boylan's Meath side. Those losses were impactful and spurred Cork onto the heights they reached afterwards.
Cork would go onto avenge the two losses, in 1990, beating Meath to retain the Sam Maguire.
Tompkins also won six Munster titles as a player.
Brian Corcoran
Corcoran achieved great success in both football and hurling for his county, however, in the latter he is regarded as one of the greatest centre-backs of his generation, if not all-time.
The Erin's Own player won three all-Ireland titles, two of which arrived after a return from retirement. Murphy, who worked closely with Corcoran at the inter-county level did not hold back in his praise of the man.
11 September 2005; Brian Corcoran, Cork, runs past the Liam McCarthy cup. Photo by Sportsfile"Hurling wise, Brian Corcoran," Murphy said.
"He won the 99 All-Ireland for us from centre-back. He was our star player and he came back a few years later and he won two All-Ireland's. Without him, we would not have won them I think. So he would be my favourite hurler."
After shocking the GAA community by retiring at 28, Corcoran returned to add further titles to his accolades.
Incredibly, he also won multiple All-Star awards across three different positions and was outstanding for the Cork senior footballers as well.
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