Kieran Shannon: A generation in Cork miss out on that winning feeling
MUCH TO PONDER: Cork manager John Cleary was left dejected after his side lost by a point against Clare. Cork has been crying out for men’s senior All-Ireland success in both codes. Pic: INPHO/Natasha Barton
Although we came out of Cusack Park thinking every generation needs the kind of win and moment that Clare football had just had, the sight of another spectator made me ponder just how different it must be to grow up in Cork these days compared to yesteryear.
Shortly after I’d taken up a spot in the main stand with my 11-year-old Clare-born son, I noticed that among the few hundred Cork supporters who had made the journey up to Ennis was Graham Canty and his family. He still looked characteristically lean and fit but the streaks of grey in his hair reminded us that while the image of him lifting Sam Maguire aloft will last forever, the moment itself is 12 and a half years ago now; already we’re at the halfway point from when that team of 2010 got over the line and when they’ll be rolled out to wave to the crowd at the 2035 All-Ireland final.
When Canty held that cup aloft that September afternoon, the primary emotion for the team and its supporters alike was relief. Over the previous three seasons Cork had been through two strikes and lost as many All Ireland finals, and not just to anyone but their nemesis and neighbours. For six years straight they had reached the semi-finals of the All Ireland series. Now that consistency had finally translated into gold. Exactly 20 years after Larry Tompkins had been the last Cork footballer to bring Sam back to the South Mall (where the pair of them were accompanied by Tomás Mulcahy and Liam MacCarthy), Canty had once again brought football’s greatest prize – whatever about football itself – home.
No one celebrating with the team in the old Burlington Hotel that evening could have envisaged Cork going as long a stretch again without winning Sam Maguire. The county was routinely winning national leagues and contesting U21 All-Irelands. While hurling in the county was going through a bruising time, it seemed like an old trend on Leeside would continue: just as one code was having a dip, the other would enjoy an upswing in their own fortunes and give the county a team to follow and cheer about.
When the hurlers were knocked out early in Munster in ’73 and ’74, Ray Cummins et al simply teamed up with JBM and Billy to torment Kerry. Then as the footballers got entangled in the three stripes affair the hurlers won three in a row. Just as Jimmy departed the scene, along came Larry. The last of the famine years were supposed to be those between the counties winning both All-Irelands in ’90 and contesting the two of them in ’99. Whether it was primary or secondary school you were in, there’d always be a Landers or Seán Óg or Canty at some stage coming around with the cup to give you the half-day off.
That isn’t how it’s worked out.
As has been noted, this is the longest spell Cork has gone without winning a senior All Ireland hurling title; when Kieran Kingston’s tenure ended against Galway in Thurles last June, it meant the wait from 2005 had now exceeded the famine between the triumphs of 1903 and 1919.
But what doesn’t seem to have been picked up on is this is the longest period Cork has gone without winning a senior All-Ireland of any descript. Between that aforementioned 16-year famine the hurlers had in the early 20th century, the footballers won an All-Ireland bang in the middle of it – 1911.
By virtue of the footballers losing to Dublin in front of Roy Keane among others last June in Croke Park, the county’s wait without an All-Ireland in either code is now greater than that between the hurlers’ triumphs of ’54 and ’66.
The junior infant of the autumn of 2010 that would have had a half-day on account of Canty and the cup is now in fifth year in secondary school without any subsequent visit from Liam or Sam. Former schoolmates that are in their final year in college have gone through the entire education system without knowing what it’s like for Cork to win a senior All-Ireland; contrast that to the junior infant of ’73 who had all those half-days off and trips up to Croker following JBM and then Teddy in either code right through to their college years.
What’s possibly an even scarier sign of the times from a Cork GAA perspective is that the defeat to Clare qualified as a mere surprise rather than a shock.
Ennis last weekend was reminiscent of when the same counties met in ’97. Again Clare won with the last kick – or rather fisted point – of the game, again the margin was a point. The teams even scored exactly the same number of points as they did in that famous encounter 26 years ago, Clare again registering 14 points, Cork the 13.
This time though no one scored a goal for Cork as Steven O’Brien managed in ’97. And there was no Clare goal, in injury time or otherwise, like Martin Daly conjured up back then. That’s one reason why Cillian Rouine and his winning point will hardly echo in history like Daly’s goal has.
And another is that beating Cork is no longer quite the story or scalp that it was.
When Clare and Cork clashed in ’97, it was do-or-die. I covered the game for this paper, only the second inter-county championship match report I’d ever done, and afterwards my editor, a certain Tony Leen, pulled me up. The tone of my first draft seemed to be more about Cork losing than Clare winning. Yes, a good share of our readership were from Cork, but the county invariably lost a championship game at some stage in the season. This had been among the three greatest wins in Clare football history.
I tweaked it accordingly yet the thrust of it remained intact. Cork hadn’t just been beaten in the championship. They had been knocked out of it. After reaching the league final, after an excruciating training regimen in which they flattened the hill in Macroom and the sand dunes of Inchydoney under the command of new manager Larry Tompkins, they were gone in 70 minutes. Never before had so many trained so much for so little.
That game as much as any other would influence the GAA to revise its championship format, ensuring that a team like Tompkins' would have at least a second game to show for all the training they were putting in. Now the latest extension of that legacy is that John Cleary’s team are guaranteed at least a further three games this summer, whether it’ll be in the Tailteann Cup or Sam Maguire.
When Daly scored that goal it stunned the entire championship, not just Cusack Park which back then had 10,000 more people in it than it had last Sunday. Rouine’s point didn’t quite reverberate like that last Sunday. In truth Roscommon beating Mayo and even New York beating Leitrim commanded more headlines. The latter was novel, unprecedented, the former, a bigger deal, given it was the Division One league champions, not a mid-table Division Two team, that had been defeated.
Still, what happened in Ennis was significant, the biggest win of Colm Collins’ 10-year reign in the estimation of the man himself. For all they’ve achieved during that period they have yet to contest a Munster final. They’ve had some great days – winning the Division Three league up in Croke Park; housing and rattling Mayo in 2017; Gary Brennan catching an injury-time kickout in Mullingar in 2019; Jamie Malone’s winner against Roscommon in Croke Park last year; league wins in Roscommon and Cavan – without having a Daly moment (be it his goal in ’92 or that one in ’97).
A generation of school-goers have grown up knowing Clare as nothing but a formidable Division Two team. They play or train at football one night, then hurling the next, and view playing county in the big ball as an honour and aspiration instead of a back-up or consolation. Yet Rouine’s point, and beating Cork in the Park though Cork might not be who they were, is the best and nearest thing they’ve had to ’97. Should they beat Limerick on Saturday week, they’ll be in a Munster final, the kind of occasion which schools in the county now under the new split-season can roll out the bunting and songs.
Munster Council should recognise the opportunity that’s opening up for them. Traditionally they’d go for the venue with the biggest capacity, which in this case would mean the Gaelic Grounds where Clare’s last four Munster final appearances (’92, ’97, 2000 and 2012) have been. But with provincial finals now seen to be diminished affairs, they should go for a venue that would enhance theirs. Extend the Clare-Kerry home-and-away arrangement to provincial finals or at least this one; 15,000-plus crammed into Cusack Park would be far more atmospheric and look a lot better on TV than the same attendance scattered across the seats and terraces of the Gaelic Grounds.
Had Cork won on Sunday, it wouldn’t have been nearly as big a deal; since Clare last played in a Munster final, Cork have featured in eight. But they haven’t won any of them since that meeting in 2012 which is almost as alarming as all those years without a school visit from Sam or Liam.
Perhaps like Clare last year they’ll rebound from a narrow defeat in their province in Ennis to reach the last eight of the All-Ireland but whatever happens this summer, the county clearly needs to get back to Division One. They’ll hardly get a better chance to win promotion to it than next season. Unlike previous years there’ll be no Dublin or Mayo or Derry or Galway, just Armagh.
There’ll be no Clare to contend with either. Collins’ men have been demoted to Division Three – but have likely graduated to reaching provincial finals, causing Daly-like nightmares and dreams for a new generation.
