Cork hurling slipping deeper into recession
“I have decided to commit to the Cork Senior Football Panel exclusively for the 2013 season. I have taken this decision very reluctantly but after a period of reflection over the winter and a personal commitment to an education programme I will not be in a position this year to meet the demands of both codes. I would like to thank all those who have supported my dual commitments. I will be making no further comment on my decision.”
For Cork football manager Conor Counihan it will have come as a boost from the blue. For his hurling equivalent Jimmy Barry-Murphy, however, it is a massive blow, with another dual star opting against hurling.
Already there are several fledgling top-class hurlers who have committed to football — potential jewels such as Aidan Walsh, Ciarán Sheehan, Damien Cahalane and Colm O’Neill — but Cadogan falls into a different category.
Though he had been something of a project and was tried and struggled initially at full-back, Cadogan last year made the centre-back position his own.
There he had become an established member — indeed the defensive fulcrum — of the new-look Cork hurling team.
This year he would have been expected to take another step forward but...
There can be no arguing with Cadogan’s decision. It’s become well-nigh impossible even at the best of times nowadays for anyone to operate at the top level in both codes. Remember those players are not being pulled in just two directions; with a club also to keep happy they’re being pulled in four and when you add in Eoin’s ‘personal commitment to an education programme’ for the coming year, it simply wasn’t on.
Doubtless though, for dedicated Cork hurling supporters, this is a major blow. It speaks too of the growing attraction to the best of our dual stars of the big-ball game.
There was a time, and not too long ago, when it would have been almost unthinkable for any Cork dual star to choose football over hurling. Even Jimmy Barry-Murphy himself — an outstanding footballer — gave up the former for the latter. Those times they have a-changed, however, and Cadogan’s choice is just further proof.
It leaves Barry-Murphy and his co-selectors now in a major bind — who will play centre-back? William Egan has played there with distinction at underage and is a possibility but that then leaves a void on the wing.
There will be many who will be calling for a return to the fold of the apparently out-of-favour John Gardiner, perhaps also the retired Seán Óg Ó hAilpín, and there is no question but that both still have plenty to offer.
If they’re to be more adventurous though, with an eye to the future, the management could go for yet another Na Piarsaigh player, last year’s U21 star Christopher Joyce, still eligible for that grade this year.
No matter who they go for, it’s a problem Cork hurling could have done without. With Kilkenny having raised the bar so high, Tipperary following, now Galway getting in on the act; with Limerick and Clare making strides, Waterford also more successful than Cork at underage in recent years, the county that had led the pack for decades is now behind.
Jimmy Barry-Murphy had led a young Cork side to All-Ireland success in 1999 but had been out of the scene for nearly a decade when he was appointed to take over from Denis Walsh in late 2011. The hope was that he would again work his magic with the current crop and last year the team had taken steps in the right direction — baby steps admittedly, but definite progress. Now Cadogan’s defection has the potential to undo all that good.
