Cork GAA has nothing that tells our young talents 'This is Cork'
The damning whispers surrounding the redevelopment of Páirc Ui Chaoimh are becoming more prevalent. Cheap talk but worryingly, I suspect, not far from the truth.
The recent drop in standards of the Cork senior football and hurling teams cannot be attributed to Páirc Ui Chaoimh’s destruction but they correlate to the substandard facilities accessible to our county teams.
Sure, there are some top rated training facilities scattered all over the city and county; Cork IT, Mallow, and Clonakilty all boast purpose-built facilities with sand-based training pitches. Short-term leases of such facilities are achieved now and then but the landlord team’s need is always greater. This short-term solution to a long-term problem inevitably exhausts itself as clubs and colleges shun the avoidable damage to their own pitches.
Cork’s relegation from Division 1 of the Allianz Football League and the hurlers’ poor run of results in the league are directly related to lack of pitch training throughout the winter. Two reports in this paper in the last month have already alluded to the serious problem of pitch availability for both our senior teams.
By the time the footballers had lost to Roscommon in their third league game, they were reported to have totalled less than 10 pitch training sessions over the entire winter period. And before anybody attempts to link lack of pitch availability to this winter’s atrocious weather conditions — Dublin, Tyrone, Sligo, Meath, Mayo, and Clare training sessions were not interrupted by the deluges. Why? All those counties have invested in suitable training facilities for their county teams. Those counties are not faced with the same dilemma as our Cork teams, going cap in hand to the clubs across the county. That has been the case in Cork, even when Páirc Ui Chaoimh was still standing, and it will still be the case after the Páirc is completed.
I was involved in the under-age development squads in Cork for two years and I was extremely impressed with the structure and vision of this initiative. However there is a significant gap in the Cork underage development movement — there is no base, no place to call home, no venue that tells these young talented guys that “This is Cork”.
Like the internal battle that the youngsters are faced with, the adult elite of the Cork footballers and hurlers are faced with the same deficiency — no place to call home.
If we were training with the Cork Under 15s on a Saturday morning, the norm was to plan our coaching content three days in advance. More often than not, the Thursday and Friday before Saturday’s session were spent ringing around clubs to ask for pitch availability.
Under 15 football inter-county development coaches in 2016 ringing and ringing, club after club — what are we at?
It is no surprise to me that less than 48 hours before they were due to play Kerry in the final round of the Allianz League, various clubs in Cork were getting phone calls from the senior football management team seeking a pitch to train on that evening after Cork IT pulled their pitch due to the inclement weather. In that specific case, they eventually availed of the goodwill of the St Vincent’s club to use their second pitch — but it is claimed up to 15 clubs had to be contacted by management before this option was secured. Important to note here that this pitch does not have floodlights, nor is it sand-based. Two players are alleged to have rolled their ankles on the surface that night.
The murmurings had started amongst the clubs a few weeks previously in the run up to the Dublin game — on that occasion, more than a dozen clubs were contacted before Castlehaven was made available (their second pitch) at five hours notice for the players, who made the two-hour drive from the city.
Yes, similar problems were faced by the Kerry hurling and football teams throughout the league. However, Kerry are currently building a purpose-built Centre of Excellence facility on 48 acres with six floodlit pitches; five of them to be sand-based. There will also be a 40,000 sq ft clubhouse that will contain a gym, locker rooms, cafeteria, offices and players lounge. I am only too sure the development squads as well as the seniors will get the “This is Kerry” feeling walking through those doors. Clare have a similar facility in Caherlohan. Donegal are further upgrading their facility at their Convoy base. The list goes on.
What are Cork’s realistic hopes of landing Sam or Liam in 2016? Based on facilities, logistical support and underage development structures relative to other contenders, the Cork teams will have to beat the odds to reach an All-Ireland final come September. Without having to exercise the mind too much, those football contenders are sure to be Dublin, Kerry, Donegal, Tyrone, Mayo.
Looking to 2017 and beyond, can Cork ever again expect to overcome these opponents when we are drifting so far behind on the basic necessities? Pitches. Floodlights. Facilities. The stubborn expectation of the Cork people and the Cork players is to be playing in semi-finals and finals every year.
However this is not a considered expectation. The Cork senior football players and management don’t invest in hope. Like any other elite team, they firmly believe and practice in elite preparation; GPS devices, in-depth statistical analysis, intense strength & conditioning programme, sleep analysis, diet control, skills testing, tactical awareness. All bases covered? Not quite.
The Cork administration did not move with the times in terms of training development. In the last 10 years, the main contenders have invested heavily in ensuring team training facilities match their playing ambitions. Clare, Sligo, and Kildare also boast adequate training facilities. It’s important to note those investments are not solely financial but more investment in strategic planning. In most cases, availing of existing facilities and partnering up with third level bodies. Take Dublin. They boast two centres of excellence in UCD and DCU. I’ve been to the one in DCU. Nothing fancy. In fact the place has the look of a basic 90s build. But it works. Central clubhouse with gym, kitchen and dining area, designated players hangout area, meeting rooms, medical rooms. And pitches — lots of them. A place to call home. A facility matching the squad’s ambition. Cork have the ability. Sure, there must be allowances made for the short-term disruption in order to achieve the long-term solutions. Building a new home usually results in a temporary dwelling. So with Páirc Ui Chaoimh under redevelopment, what’s the big deal? Won’t we soon be the envy of the nation when it’s completed? With two pitches, sadly we won’t. There is no other way to summarise this other than a missed opportunity.
My first major gripe with the redevelopment of Páirc Ui Chaoimh is we (the wider GAA community) don’t need another 40,000 plus capacity stadium in Munster. After Ennis is complete, there will be five such stadia in Munster. In any one year, there is a maximum of five games in this province (one football and four hurling championship games) that are likely to attract more that 20,000 supporters. One venue, maybe two, would suffice.
My second gripe with the intended home of Cork GAA? Two pitches! This will not be enough to prepare our county teams. The senior teams will merely be full-time tenants on the facility’s single all-weather training pitch. This pitch will only be available on a rotation basis, rotating between senior hurlers and footballers (note: our underage talent will still remain homeless). It will also be likely that restrictions will prevail in the summer as the venue will surely host concerts in an effort to pay for it. Result? Cork senior teams will still rely on the charity of our clubs and the use of their second pitches. This not only does the county teams a huge disservice, it misses the opportunity to foster a club environment. There is pride in playing for Cork but pride will only get you so far. We need to match spirit with substance and give our young talent a fighting chance to stand victorious on the South Mall on a Monday night in September.
The day I spent in DCU was with the Cork U16 development squads playing our Dublin counterparts. Who was training on the pitch adjacent? The Dublin senior football team. The 16-year-olds watch them train on Saturday in the flesh; watch them play on Sunday on television, eat in the same canteen as them after sessions. The importance of this is not to be underestimated. Imagine our impressionable 15-year-old trotting off Pitch 3 and walking past Pitch 1 to see Colm O’Neill practice frees after a senior session? A centre of excellence is not just a collection of pitches and buildings, it’s a community that harnesses work ethic and excellence. It facilitates teams to prepare to the best standard they can. It also allows the younger generation to taste the elite standards of a senior teams’ preparation, to absorb the culture and best practices of the team they hope to represent.
This is not just a case of fretting over the other counties putting in place modern-day facilities and Cork being slow off the mark. One senior All- Ireland across both codes in the last 11 years. Two U21 football titles in the same period. No minor titles. The statistics match our infrastructure. The Cork brand is broken. The players and the management are refusing to let circumstance drown their dreams, but they are confronted by inferior standards. It’s not just match tactics and coaching drills that keep Peadar Healy and Kieran Kingston awake at night, it’s fundraising tactics, pitch negotiations and training facilities.
The Cork administration is not planning for success, they are simply hoping for success. Dublin, Tyrone, Kerry are all preparing for success. It’s easy to sit and acknowledge the problem, but where are the solutions?
Well Páirc Ui Chaoimh is not the solution, it’s too small and cannot aspire to be classified as a centre of excellence. There are many options though. Just look at Munster rugby and their marriage with University of Limerick. Dublin GAA with DCU. There has been some courtship between the county board and Cork IT but far too often, the campus is made unavailable. The administrators of Cork GAA were spiritless when it came to securing a lasting partnership with the campus and the result is irregular use of their facilities. With a solid commitment from the board, I’m sure our teams would enjoy regular tenancy there. In the meantime team managements are left standing in the middle, scrambling to portray a professional set-up to players. That was the case when I was part of it 10 years ago and it’s clearly still the case today.
Another viable and attractive partnership would be UCC, the cultural heartbeat of Cork. Its sporting prowess is well recognised. There is a strategy within the college to build a facility on a 50-acre site adjacent to the Munster Showgrounds on the western suburbs of the city. UCC would surely welcome a long-term partner for what could be an expensive venture without someone to share costs. For me that would be the match made in heaven.
But I suspect the county board are not in a position to negotiate and plan for the future. It seems Páirc Ui Chaoimh is proving a very costly investment indeed.
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