His career included stints with club sides Valley Rovers, Ballinhassig and Cooley Kickhams, while he was also a five-time All-Ireland Championship winner with the Cork senior hurling team.
From his debut, he developed a midfield partnership with Jack Lynch and made 19 championship appearances in a career that ended with his last game in the 1947 All-Ireland final.
In Gaelic football, he won a county senior championship medal with the club in 1939 after lining out at right wing-forward in the 3–13 to 1–06 defeat of Newtown Blues.
He was dropped from the starting fifteen in favour of Alan Lotty for the subsequent 1942 All-Ireland final against Dublin but was eventually listed amongst the reserves when it had looked like he would miss the game altogether.
[citation needed] Cottrell remained as an unused substitute throughout the game, but collected his second successive winners' medal after a 2–14 to 3–04 victory.
Restored to the starting fifteen for the 1943 Munster Championship, Cottrell won his second provincial winners' medal after a 2–13 to 3–08 victory over Waterford in that years final.
Cottrell scored a point from play and ended the 2–13 to 1–02 victory over Dublin by becoming one of a select group of players to have won four successive All-Ireland medals.
[7][8] After failing to secure a fifth successive title in 1945, Cottrell won a fourth provincial championship winners' medal after lining out at midfield in the 3–08 to 1–03 defeat of Limerick in the 1946 Munster final.
Cottrell missed Cork's first two games of the 1947 Munster Championship but claimed a fifth winners' medal after being restored to midfield for the 2–06 to 2–03 defeat of Limerick in the 1947 final.
He claimed his first Railway Cup medal that year after lining out at left wing-back in Munster's 4–10 to 4–04 defeat of Connacht in the final.
Cottrell claimed a second successive Railway Cup medal the following year after playing at midfield in Munster's 6–08 to 2–00 victory over Ulster in the 1945 final.