No time for Cork ‘recrimination’
What hope for the future, was the common question in Cork city and county, how far back have we slipped? Straighten up, says Eamon O’Donoghue, a member of the last great Cork team, the three-in-a-row side of the late 70s.
“This is no time for recrimination, for destructive talk,” said the man who captained his club, Blackrock, to two All-Ireland club titles.
“I’d hope everyone would be constructive now in addressing this situation, and very honest.
“There should be some kind of a forum in which every club has an input, put in proper structures for the future.
“I’d be in favour of Cork having a Director of Hurling, working hand in hand with all the full-time coaches and the county board. There’s a lot of good work being done with development squads but all of that needs to be overseen.
“The main thing though, people should be patient. We have to be constructive, put all the division of the past decade behind us, everyone moving forward together.”
There’s a very logical reason why Cork are where they are at the moment, says another member of that three-in-a-row side, ‘Blondie’ John Horgan.
He pointed out: “If there’s one over-riding reason why Cork have arrived at this situation it’s the fact that we had a six or seven very good players who came on the scene together, won a few All-Irelands with Cork, and unfortunately now you’re seeing the other side of that, that they’re all coming to the end of their careers together. We were fortunate to have them, but we’re unfortunate now that they’re all fading from the scene together.”
Where O’Donoghue would like to see a Director of Hurling and better structures in place to improve Cork’s situation, Horgan has a more immediate and very practical suggestion, pertaining to training in general and to warm-ups in particular.
“I can’t see why we need all the cones – every player should have a ball in his hand taking the pitch, every player should practise in the warm-up what he’ll be doing in the match, hitting balls waist-high, head-high and so on.
“Hurling, hurling and more hurling, that’s what you need, the kind of direct play we saw from Tipperary on Sunday.
“Who would be looking for a cone during a match, except maybe an ice-cream cone at half-time on a hot day!
“Honest to God when I see all those cones, but it’s gone so far now that fellas are afraid to go to the old system.
“You get these fads in coaching, every fella then thinks that’s the thing to do. But Galway went back to basics after losing to Dublin — they were in a bad way after that game but they’ve turned things around.
“And you can get contradictions in hurling too. Cork beat Tipperary last year and could have beaten them again this year, which makes you think the county can’t be that far off the pace.
“Someone needs to come up with a plan and get cracking on it.”
Looking to the future, Horgan sees only a thin sliver of hope.
“It’s a serious situation, and when you meet people from other counties they think you’re codding them. They are saying ‘Ah, ye have this up yere sleeve, ye have that up yere sleeve’;
“Cork have nothing up their sleeve, the players just aren’t there at the moment. Butter it up all you like, butter it down, but the truth is that six or seven of those lads have hit the 30 mark at the same time. You can’t blame Denis Walsh, you can’t blame one man – I think Cork are going to be down for a while.
“You look at Tipperary on Sunday and they were awesome. The only thing, five years ago Cork were where Tipp are now and looked like being on top for quite a while and we know what happened. It shows things can change very quickly. What Tipp did I don’t know, but it happened.”
O’Donoghue however, is a little more hopeful. “I’d be optimistic enough. The standard of minor hurling at club level has been very good this year; the players are there at that level, it’s a question of identifying them and nurturing them. We’re going to have to work hard to get back up.
“Denis has worked very hard over the last three years, I don’t think there’s an awful lot more he could have done.
“But it’s time to put all the division behind us for the good of Cork hurling.”
