Disheartened Rebel legend Cummins fearing for county sides
The five-time All-Ireland and All Star winner admits he is pessimistic about the hurlers’ 2013 season and feels Conor Counihan’s forward line don’t work hard enough.
Cummins also said he wasn’t surprised Dónal Óg Cusack was axed from Jimmy Barry-Murphy’s league panel and can understand why Eoin Cadogan made his decision to commit solely to the one code, even if he felt it would be the hurlers.
He prefers to wait and see how Cork fare in their opening Division 1A hurling fixtures before making a full prediction but isn’t heartened by recent developments.
“I’d like to see a few league matches now before I could answer that question with any kind of confidence. I’m not optimistic, to be honest with you. I think they have a steep mountain to climb. And Kilkenny are just so far ahead of the rest.
“Your team now is very much a young team and inexperienced, so it’s going to take another while for them to gain the experience. That’s one of the reasons why I’m not terribly optimistic this year. I think they’re in transition.”
Cummins isn’t as concerned about the Cork footballers’ poor start to Division One and feels it’s one of the strongest panels the county has had in a long time.
However, he stresses they have underachieved as a unit and points to the work-rate of the forwards as the primary reason for it.
“We’ve always struggled with scoring forwards and over the last number of years, we’ve had the best bunch of scoring forwards we’ve ever had.
“Now, I would be critical of their work-rate, because I think it isn’t good enough... that would be my criticism. That would be my reason for them not succeeding as much as they should.”
He claims the attack don’t put in enough toil off the ball or in winning dirty ball. “You can have all the skill you like, but if you haven’t got the work-rate, you’re wasting your time.”
Although many observers were taken aback by Barry-Murphy’s decision to cull Cusack from his squad, Cummins wasn’t that shocked.
“Not really. There are good guys there and young lads that deserve their chance as well,” said Cummins and he added: “There’s only a limited period when you can have the honour of wearing the jersey and you hand it over to someone else.
“I don’t know what’s in the mind of the selectors. Is Dónal Óg good enough to play? He probably is. But you’ve got to give youth its chance too. There have been two sub goalkeepers there for several years.”
As much as Cummins — who was selected at full-forward in the hurling team of the millennium — managed to excel in both codes, he recognises Cadogan was presented with a difficult challenge in continuing to play football and hurling.
However, he imagined the Douglas man would have plumped for the hurlers.
“To me, there’s no comparison in terms of the skills of the two games. Obviously hurling to me is a way better game when it’s played well, and I always got a greater kick out of hurling.
“I enjoyed my football, and if you were to ask me what was the highlight of my career, I might even say it was the football All-Ireland of ‘73 — it meant so much to the people of West Cork.”
Cummins eventually gave up inter-county football due to work and family commitments, having played both games at the highest level for seven years.
He believes the qualifiers have made it extra difficult for dual players to represent their county teams at senior level.
“That’s probably the big reason why you can’t do both codes. Now, the qualifiers cause a lot of problems, otherwise in terms of club fixtures and so on.”
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