His Farney outfit had mustered a measly 0-2 in the first half of their group game against Kerry last month and a radical move was required.
Here was a squad low on confidence and without a win since their Division 1 league victory against Dublin on January 27, but their fortunes have taken a turn for the better since then.
They scrambled a draw against Louth in round two of the All-Ireland series before earning a crucial victory over Meath on Sunday, which sees them into the last 12 with a first win in five months.
We often hear of inter-county bosses who thrive on the element of control, but Corey decided to relinquish that and insists the “gamble” of going “back to basics” with their clubs for a brief spell has reaped dividends.
“I think it was important, especially after the Kerry game, it was such a bad first-half performance. Sometimes the more you force it, the worse it gets,” Corey told the Irish Independent.
“Sometimes, just get them back to basics, going back to the club and seeing what you get out of that. We did it after that, we drew against Louth and won this game. It’s important you sometimes step out of the thing a wee bit and give them a wee bit of breathing space and then they pull back in.
“And some of them will come back in with massive confidence after a big club performance. You have to take a gamble on that and we did. Barry McBennett is one of the fellas it worked with. He went out with his club and had a few massive games. He got in here and backed it up.”
Monaghan have been hit with numerous injury setbacks during a tough season to date, but to “get back winning again was important” ahead of a “big test” against Galway this weekend. Corey hopes they get a bounce from a win that was a long time coming.
“What you did last month or two months ago is irrelevant in the new system. In two weeks, there are going to be four teams left in the competition. It’s what you do in the next two weeks that counts,” he said.
“And other teams haven’t played a knockout championship match yet. We played our first here [against Meath] and won it, so we’ll take that and advance on. We are away against a second-placed team [Galway] in their group the next day. That’s the challenge for us
“Now there’s another one next week to get into Croke Park, and that’s when the thing starts happening, but not until that. That’s the challenge for us.”
Corey insists they have a “different team” compared to when they made the All-Ireland semi-final last year from the same position as they stand now, but he is delighted with how many of his young guns have stepped up.
“We’ve lost Darren Hughes to probably a year-ending injury, lost Karl O’Connell as well there. They [inexperienced players] do have to [step up]. It takes time. Boys are trying to do that in Division 1, minus the older players who retired.
“You’re going to take hits at that stage. We have boys there that are capable of stepping up. But stepping up at inter-county level, you have to be willing and able to take the hits.
“There’s a lot of adversity in an inter-county career, you get bad times and good times. When the bad times happen, you have to dig in and stick at it. The more times you do that over a period of five, six, or seven years, then you have a team.
“If your team’s changing all the time because you’re hitting hard times and boys are out and they’re in, you build nothing. We would have had that before in Monaghan where we had very little [turnover] of players.
“We had bad years surely, but boys were back the next year. If Monaghan can do that again over a period of years, they’ll have built a team that will be able to compete.
“A transition is happening.”
