Cork football must fight for the right to parity
This Saturday evening sees Cork’s City Hall play host to Dr Con Murphy’s testimonial dinner. As recipients go, there are few more deserving, even if he agreed to all the fuss purely for the benefit of his county.
How the GAA’s most famous medic could give anything more back to Cork GAA is a wonder. As UCC GAA development officer John Grainger recently told us, what Murphy has spared them with his time and expertise is immeasurable.
The county board would avow the same. But yet again his generosity shines through as all profits from the event will go to Cairde Chorcaí.
Coming just over a week after the launch of the Cork football’s five-year plan (which will require significant financial resources) and less than a month after the estimated
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It merits highlighting again that the genesis for Cairde Chorcaí was the Cork Senior Footballers Funding Co Ltd, which was established in 2016.
Hurling has benefitted from the body’s rebranding as it will from the football blueprint, which is quite the achievement.
Missing from that otherwise promising #2024 document was tone, the chip-on-the-shoulder defiance that has characterised the best of Cork football down through the years. In hurling terms, “Corkness” is indeed “that air of confidence just on the right side of arrogance” as defined in the plan but in football it is borderline belligerence punctuated by the competition to the west in Kerry and from within by hurling.
‘Unloved’, as Eoin Cadogan once said, but also uncaring.
If Cork football is to truly blossom, it can’t be a loss leader to hurling but must stand as its own entity. Alone it stands but that message wasn’t exactly clear and here are the reasons why: “While I can say with confidence as Chairperson of Cork County Board that we treat hurling and football equally in terms of resources, competitions, publicity and so on, does this guarantee equity?”
The rhetorical question posed by Tracey Kennedy in the foreword to last week’s plan was a welcome one. Although the senior footballers have had gripes with resources most recently under Peadar Healy, it is now acknowledged that they are well catered for.
“The county board are doing everything they can to equalise and make sure it’s the same both ways,” said defender Cian Kiely last week.
Equity can never be guaranteed when so many simply don’t regard Cork football as an asset. That it is judged by the same standards as Cork hurling certainly doesn’t help (though it’s nine years since Sam came home and 14 since Liam). There is also the belief the game anchors hurling. One need only look at the reaction on Twitter to Saturday’s McGrath Cup final defeat to Clare to sample that mentality.
“5 yr plan stage 1: close your eyes and dream that Cork only play Hurling- Happy Days Rebel’s Abu” wrote Jim Foley.
Such a view is diplomatically acknowledged in the plan - “if we don’t care, it can’t hurt us” - but they aren’t going to change without a lot of investment of time and money; possibly more than what hurling enjoys.
“The High-Performance Director will oversee and develop the sports science elements of team and athlete preparation necessary for readying players for the rigours of modern inter-county hurling and football.”
Hurling is mentioned just three times in the football plan but the above citation would have been more than enough. Football will have to share a high-performance director as it will a talent development manager. Consulting the Dublin senior footballers as he has the Cork senior hurlers, Gary Keegan has demonstrated there is no demarcation to the role of HP director but football requires more of a hands-on approach in both that department and in developing talent.
Kennedy also stated the finance sub-committee as recommended in the plan won’t be exclusive to football; ditto the games developments officers.
The inclination to bundle is the country’s strongest dual county is understandable but in such circumstances sharing might not be caring.
“Cork Senior footballers will run an open session every six weeks in a club ground decided by a social media competition.”
The internet engagement is an innovative idea although other teams have been spreading the good word around their respective counties for some years now.
Cork can go further and take a league game or two to the county specifically to the west to the likes of Clonakilty. Not only would it acknowledge a football stronghold but it could serve as a fortress. During his time as Monaghan manager, Seamus McEnaney hosted their best league opposition in smaller venues away from Clones and that same mentality would suit Cork.
By all means host half or the majority of home league games in Páirc Uí Chaoimh and Páirc Uí Rinn but go west and life can be made a little easier for a significant cohort of supporters and possibly players too.
“Players and management engage positively with media requests for interviews and appearances.”
Neither group has been anything but cordial in their dealings with the media in recent times. Cork’s glasnost following the strikes was recognised by the Gaelic Writers Association when Ger Lane and Kennedy claimed PRO of the year awards in 2012 and ‘14.
From Conor Counihan’s time in charge, there has been a willingness to converse but in his spell utterances were efficient, sometimes edgy and with each phrase there was a purpose. We’re not talking about Cork’s ill-advised bustle about Mayo’s forwards prior to the counties’ 2014 All-Ireland quarter-final but a determination to walk the talk.
Players haven’t been afraid to describe the gutter these last few years but it’s time they spoke about how they intend getting out of it.
Email: john.fogarty@examiner.ie
Officer vacancies troubling
Pat Horgan’s fears about
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Chiming with Midleton’s difficulty in filling the position of club secretary, one reader attached an essay entitled “The GAA Grassroots Are Dying”, penned by an unnamed midlands club secretary.
It tells a familiar tale: “At the AGMs I have attended in recent years there is a deathly silence when these positions become vacant with the outgoing officer sweating that he won’t be released as there is no one to take up the role.
“Some of the stronger voices on the committee say, ‘We will stay here all night until the role is filled’ as they wouldn’t want the neighbouring parish to hear the club couldn’t get a chairman or secretary. Eventually a person that may or may not be suitable for the role is cajoled into taking it and the sighs of relief from the floor is audible. The reason this is happening is that the GAA from what I can see places no value on these jobs.”
Eleven months ago, GAA president John Horan spoke of amateurism as per managers and players having to be redefined “in a GAA context in the modern era”. As push comes to shove, that may have to apply to officers too.
D-day looms for rules
Of course, it doesn’t work this way but if inter-county football managers have sway with their Central Council delegates then the handpass experimental rule will be a thing of the past by the start of the Allianz Leagues the weekend after next.
The Gaelic Players Association’s representative on Ard Chomhairle is sure to make their presence felt at this Saturday’s meeting by reiterating the almost unanimous opposition among their members to the limit of three consecutive handpasses. Dare they attempt it, updating the poll this week would likely reveal more than the original 96% are against the rule.
Standing playing rules committee chairman David Hassan has insisted the presentation to Central Council will include “unintended consequences” of the rules in a sample of pre-season matches.
The slight reduction in goals for this time of year might be cited although points are marginally up but then consideration will also have to be given to the amount of kick-passes that are now going backwards as a result of teams having to restart their handpass sequence in the face of defensive banks.
We’ve stressed that the rules require further examination in better weather conditions by better players but the level of opposition to the hand-pass measure is such that to survive this Saturday will be death-defying.
