Cork feels value of senior success
Administrators may be grappling with a nightmare fixture backlog, but Jimmy Barry-Murphy’s side has captured the imagination of the Cork public, and a rising tide is floating many vessels in the deep south.
Paddy Barry is managing the Glen Rovers minors who face Blackrock in Monday’s Premier I Minor Hurling Championship final. The Cork team’s run has given hurling in the city a shot in the arm, he says, and he can offer concrete evidence.
“Getting to an All-Ireland senior final is massive. It’s a huge boost to everyone who’s involved in the GAA in Cork because it puts the thing in the foreground. Everybody is talking about the hurling game, there are colours up all over the county, it’s something kids want to be associated with.
“You have to have success every now and again, at least, to keep things going. Take the minors who are playing Monday night. The last time Cork were in an All-Ireland, they were 11, 10, maybe nine. That had an effect on them, the fact that Cork were going well then. The same goes now for kids of that age, eight, nine, 10. I see kids of that age and they have a hurley in their hands all day long, in and out of school, going down to the club, out on the road. That’s the spin-off right there from the county team doing well.
“Our minors would have gone to all the Cork games this year in the championship, just like other clubs. They all go together, they have the crack and they see Cork win a couple of games... that helps on any number of levels.”
Notoriously, Cork haven’t had any All-Ireland success at minor level since 2001, though optimists could point to a narrow defeat at the hands of eventual champions Waterford in this year’s Munster championship.
Barry acknowledges there’s a lot of doom and gloom about the grade. “I think it’s not as bad as people say and yet there’s probably a cause for concern at the same time. “It’s good there are two city teams in the minor final because it shows hurling is strong enough in the city, but the question is whether or not it could be stronger.
“There are a number of things that could be done. In my opinion we’re badly missing the bridge between underage in the clubs and the schools — there was huge work done for years in the schools that maybe we all took for granted a bit, though now that it’s not being done any more everybody misses it.
“Certainly it might be time to look at amalgamating schools in Cork, to have combined colleges, because that’s part of the reason Dublin have come on so much in hurling. They got their colleges together, got competitive in the Leinster colleges system, and now they’re competing as individual schools again. But it takes time and effort.”
Barry also points out clubs have other demands on their time — and on already scarce resources. “Clubs are trying to help out with the schools, but most of them just don’t have the resources to do that. A lot of clubs are under pressure with debts, and what you find is that people who are capable have to deal with that issue rather than hurling and football, which is what the club is there for in the first place.
“Another challenge is that it’s hard to get people involved. That’s always been true, but anyone who thinks that just because lads are losing their jobs, that they’re keen to go and help out their club — it doesn’t transfer like that. It’s hard to get people involved because it’s hard, time-consuming work. That’s always been true. Training and running teams has always been a challenge. But nowadays it’s an even bigger challenge.”
nMonday: Premier 2 MHC final: Fr O’Neills v Newcestown, Páirc Uí Rinn, 6.30pm; Premier 1 MHC final: Blackrock v Glen Rovers, Páirc Uí Rinn, 8pm.
