Larry Ryan: Corkness restored en route to the little All-Ireland

Barrs forward Christy Ryan (left) clashes with Glen men Teddy O'Brien and Martin O'Doherty in the Cork SHC final of 1977, before a record crowd at Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Picture: Irish Examiner Archive

They are still queuing up, the lads who like to get things off their chests, to tell us why the All-Ireland championships shouldn’t be played this year.

Just as many are ready to insist that they must be played, for the morale of the nation.

But still nobody has mentioned the single most compelling reason for getting down to business next month, and getting the whole thing run off swiftly.

Which is, of course, to allow Cork complete a commemorative 30th anniversary double within the calendar year.

It wouldn’t be in their make-up, the Cork crowd, to make it all about themselves. 

Or at least to let us know what they have in mind. So it is incumbent on outsiders to make this case for them, to allow nature take its course.

We’ve called it from a long way out on this page. But when it eventually comes to pass — probably with one of the Cadogans making a surprise cameo in the football final, just to honour scripture in the Teddy Mac dual role — most people will put it down to one fateful day in May.

The day the government imposed the county lockdown, the day they instructed people to stay within their borders.

Even amid the doom and gloom of global pandemic, it is impossible to overstate the enormous surge of well-being that caused in Cork. Did it detonate an explosion of Corkness? Chalk it down!

They saw it all again with fresh eyes, saw all they had and counted all their blessings. They saw the possibility they might never again be able to leave Cork, and they were pretty okay with that, all told.

As Ask Audrey put it, they were surer than ever that Cork was the berries.

And while they were good enough to let a few of us outsiders stay on, during that time, they rested that bit easier too knowing there wouldn’t be any more of us coming in, for the foreseeable.

Contrast that with the angst suffered in Offaly, Laois and Kildare in recent times and ask yourselves how will any of them even win Leinster again.

Cork, on the other hand, were back in that place where they are most dangerous. When they can take it or leave it, anything going on up in Dublin. Haven’t they their own ‘little All-Ireland’ anyway.

From there, it was inevitable that this year’s Cork hurling championships would be great.

Sure, they got a few breaks, along the way, with the bit of tweaking done to the planned format, to speed things up a bit. But you’d like to think they’d have copped that anyway, somewhere along the line.

Whisper it, the lockout of supporters was vital too, the intoxicating power of FOMO the special sauce this year badly needed.

The Irish Examiner, to give it its due, also played a part, by streaming the matches free, as did all the clubs who pointed some class of camera at a game. 

Because let’s face it, otherwise we were in for a summer of cribbing about prices and download speeds.

And crucially, in a GAA world obsessed with structures, Cork delivered the perfect competition format. 

A deceptively simple 12-team setup with enough shortcuts and trapdoors to virtually eliminate the dead rubber, to somehow keep everyone interested until the last knockings.

It immediately put Cork back in the role where it feels most comfortable — as the envy of the sporting world.

This magical structure should immediately be implemented in flagging tournaments everywhere. 

After many decades where GAA folk talked wistfully of the ‘Champions League format’, we can now see a future where Real Madrid and Barcelona begin their routes to glory via the Cork GAA format.

Sure enough, the hurling delivered another handful of crackers last weekend, and all boats on Leeside have accordingly been lifted. 

This week, I saw it written, in these quarters, that there are “three appetising Cork football championship games” being shown this weekend. 

And, as far as I know, not one single person has written in to complain about oxymorons.

It’s nearly two years now since Cork famously set off on a mission with a five-year plan, ostensibly for football, but with much wider aspirations.

As Tracey Kennedy put it, “This plan seeks to reboot that sense of ‘Corkness’ in our players, our clubs and our supporters”.

We worried about them then. If you were having to look for Corkness, how could you know what you were looking for? Because Corkness certainly wouldn't tell you.

And it hasn’t been plain sailing since. Bobs were scarce. The Páirc was sopping. The seniors were bate.

It sounds a touch Trumpian but they’ve drained the field and seem to be making Cork great again. 

Sponsors are lining up. Plans are in place. The underage is winning. Scripture was published, in the form of a book on the double.

And last Saturday evening, their All-Ireland winning hurler, Seanie McGrath, commentating on the thriller between Midleton and Douglas, brought things back to first principles.

How much easier for the hurlers and footballers to take on Waterford and Kerry when they've first steeled themselves in the big one, back in Cork?

“All the talk was Cork weren’t doing well underage. Our U21s and minors. And in some ways that took a lot of pressure off the club scene,” concluded Seanie.

“And maybe that's where a lot of the root of the problem was. We were known as the little All-Ireland for years and that old appeal seemed to have gone.” 

But it is back. Cork is looking, once again, inside its borders and, naturally, likes what it sees. Now, to say you were among the 34,000 at the Glen v the Barrs in ‘77 is a prouder boast than seeing Nirvana at Henry's.

And in case these good vibes wear off in the coming weeks, RTÉ are screening the Christy Ring story this autumn.

After that, the only genuine threat to the double is the possibility they will reimpose the border lockdown themselves. And never venture out again.