John Fogarty: Cork's audacity of hope lights up winter

The victorious Cork players leaving Páirc Uí Chaoimh were greeted with car horns and waving flags

Tue, 10 Nov, 2020 - 06:50

There was a touch of Wilmington, Delaware about Ballintemple, Cork on Sunday evening.

Nineteen hours after US president-elect Joe Biden’s drive-in acceptance speech was met with honks and cheers in his hometown in Delaware, the victorious Cork players leaving Páirc Uí Chaoimh were greeted with car horns and waving flags.

As a sombre Peter Keane delivered his post-match interview from the concourse of the South Stand, the vista of jubilation on the plaza behind him couldn’t have been more juxtaposed.

Cork were entitled to enjoy this. Could they end eight years of misery and the husks of moral consolations? Yes they could.

Not too far away from the now infamous Blackrock parade that contributed at least in perception to the end of club activity in September, the outpouring on this occasion was far more civilised but nevertheless poignant.

Emerging from the South Stand tunnel where they had commenced their 2020 season preparations in Spartan-like conditions 12 months previously, the Cork players wore smiles that beamed as strongly as the headlights on their cars. As Eoin Cadogan said three years ago, Cork footballers have been unloved for a long time but in these impersonal times the efforts of those supporters to acknowledge their achievement must have meant everything.

Throughout the county, there were similar scenes in sitting rooms. Tears of delight were shed in Mitchelstown not just because one of their own had delivered the killer blow but how it was done.

In Clonakilty, cups of tea and the odd alcoholic beverage were lost to the carpet as Mark Keane followed Luke Connolly’s Hail Mary with that almighty amen.

As cruelly as the knockout nature of the competition exposed Kerry’s shortcomings, it couldn’t have been fairer to Cork.

In years past, Kerry would have dragged them back to Killarney and given them a scolding for having the temerity to challenge them so closely.

But on Sunday the fight had to be settled on the night and it was Keane who replicated what Fionn Fitzgerald did to Cork five years ago as Colm Cooper did five years before that as Bryan Sheehan did a year before that as did Mike Frank Russell did seven years before that.

Yes, for good measure there were occasions in that timeframe of 18 years when James Masters and John Hayes came to Cork’s rescue to live another day but they were part-time magicians to the Houdini acts pulled off by Kerry.

For Kerry, this defeat will be as difficult to accept as it is for the current occupier of the White House.

Not because Cork didn’t deserve it but because they blew it. The litany of early first-half misses, David Clifford’s inexplicable wides, his oh-so-close goal chance, his decision not to take a convenient mark, David Moran’s kicks to nothing in second-half extra-time… the charge sheet is heavy.

With another year remaining, Peter Keane will have an intensely uncomfortable winter as Kerry manager. The pandemic arrived so soon after he let Donie Buckley go that the fallout from it was truncated. And when Kerry returned to action, a Division 1 title appeared to have brushed that non-mutual parting of the ways under the carpet. But with a group laden with potential, the urgency for success is palpable.

One All-Ireland in 11 years can be paralleled with the yawning gap between 1986 and ‘97. And if being beaten by Dublin is barely acceptable, losing to a Division 3 Cork team will be regarded as a reason for impeachment.

“No Malarkey” had been an unusual slogan of Biden’s during the recent election. It was clear Cork coach and maor foirne Cian O’Neill wasn’t going to take any of it either when close to the end of extra-time Kerry goalkeeper Shane Ryan made no attempt to clear a second ball from the field. As the game couldn’t restart until the other ball was removed, Kerry’s attempt to waste valuable seconds was thwarted by O’Neill running on to boot it past the end line.

Kerry, who in true Dublin style didn’t reveal their substitutes in announcing their side on Friday, had also tried to be cute at the outset of the game. It has been a Covid protocol at Munster Championship games for players to take their starting positions for ‘Amhrán na bhFiann’, a means of discouraging teams from congregating and shouting at one another or singing in close proximity. Despite repeated pleas over the PA system, 14 of Kerry starting team didn’t budge. A tad ironic given how impressive Kerry had been with their own coronavirus measures.

Like them, we had considered this would be a competition where safety would prevail. Instead, Cork have shown that it’s those who dare, win. They had been biding their time long enough. In a salvaged Championship, the audacity of their hope couldn’t be more appropriate.

Knock-out suitable for this year only

A dejected Seán O’Shea after Kerry's elimination. Picture: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Only for the pandemic, the advantages of a split season would not have been experienced in practical terms. Only for it, the idea of separating the club and county championship seasons wouldn’t have been touched.

In difficulty, the GAA have found an opportunity. Proposing the inter-county season ends in mid-July is one thing but a return to a knockout football championship, as some people have been proposing after events these past two weekends, is most definitely another.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland yesterday, GAA president John Horan switched sports and kicked for touch when asked about retaining the knockout element of the competition. “I’m not the one who’s going to make that call.”

Horan obviously doesn’t want to take a public stance before proposals for the football championship are voted on at Congress in February. And it would appear that next summer’s All-Ireland SFC will be based on a shorter qualifier format with the Tailteann Cup for Division 3 and 4 teams who don’t reach their respective provincial finals.

However, he will appreciate there is far too much invested by players and management for it all to come down to one day. The GAA moving towards condensing the inter-county season is one thing but to make the championship all or nothing would likely turn off many of those involved when for years they have been crying out for games and crying foul of the training-to-match ratio.

Don’t be fooled by those spouting that misty-eyed Corinthian spirit propaganda about how good they had it in their day; they didn’t. Retaining the knockout element of the All-Ireland SFC would be a war-time decision made for a time of peace. It would be retrograde, damaging and an overreaction of epic proportions.

May the GAA offer succour to those in mourning

Aaron Gillane, pictured, and Cian Lynch have both lost dear relatives this year. Picture: Daire Brennan/Sportsfile

Patrickswell have had too much grief this year. The recent tragic passing of Paul Carey, brother of Ciarán and uncle of Cian Lynch who led the club to the senior county title, follows the death in May of Ciarán’s mother-in-law Mary, wife of Limerick legend Phil Bennis.

Aaron Gillane also lost a dear relative in his uncle Patrick Higgins last month while Kildare forward Neil Flynn’s father Fergal was buried the day before Sunday’s Leinster quarter-final victory over Longford. Emulating Dermot Earley, the Maynooth man’s three points were vital in helping the Lilywhites seal the win. Birr’s multiple All-Ireland winner Adrian Cahill also passed away over the weekend.

Speaking in this newspaper back in May, Ciarán Carey articulated how mourning during this pandemic was like “something out of The Twilight Zone” because of the social restrictions in place. The month before, he had also attended the funeral of his former team-mate Mike Houlihan’s brother Ger and was struck by the inability to pay respects as would usually be the case. “Every family has a story out of this and there are too many that are sad,” he remarked.

Neither hurling nor football is going to make up for such loss of life but for Gillane it must have provided succour as he turned in a man-of-the-match winning display against Tipperary in Páirc Uí Chaoimh last Sunday week, scoring 2-6. For Lynch too you would hope this Sunday’s Munster final against Waterford offers a distraction as he grieves Paul.

Our sympathies to the respective families on their bereavements.

Email: john.fogarty@examiner.ie