Conor McCarthy: Cork review process won’t be easy but worth it in the long run

When things go badly wrong, as they sometimes will, a review is inevitably required. 

In this review process, we often find it difficult to separate fault and failure. While the foundation of any success is learning from our failures, we can miss the opportunity in the rush of the blame game. We like fault better and so history will most likely repeat itself.

Review in times of failure is certainly not easy but those who can accurately identify failure’s causes and contexts, with no ego, are the ones that start to shape the future.

Structure. Skill set. Mindset. It is said that performance review in any domain is best analysed in terms of these three key areas, in that order. This process hones in on uncomfortable truths but still adheres to a belief in simplicity. While emotions might be high, it keeps the conversation critical but constructive. It helps maintain perspective.

What are the real issues? Are these issues structural, do they concern a skill set deficiency or is there a mindset problem?

With Cork football, most people will go straight for the latter option but that leaves too much on the table. Many are adamant they can identify various other reasons for the latest collapse, not realising that they are probably touching on just one reason, and maybe not even the most important one.

We can wander from blame shifting to tactical warren holes to personnel issues to discipline problems.

Yes, the review process needs to happen but it also needs to have a shape.

Cork went into Saturday night’s game with a turnaround challenge and personnel problems that might never have mattered but for Kildare’s big performance. There was to be no masking of anything in this game. The whole event might never even have happened if Fionn Fitzgerald’s late point in the drawn Munster final had drifted wide.

Ifs and buts. Worthless compared to the truths that can now be addressed in a meaningful way after the reality of a bad loss.

Putting shape on this review doesn’t mean there isn’t scope for a good kick in the arse. For certain players, it’s the most important part. However, in the rush to give them all a kick, the real learnings can be lost. The kick will gratify the person doing the kicking but it simplifies matters and ends conversations.

The players will feel each kick and more. They resent these kicks and the kickers resent them. This pent up frustration within the group can build and release into an angry performance like the one we saw in the drawn game in Killarney.This can be a short term emotional response. The pat on the back is only two feet away from the next kick in the arse.

Against Kildare, the structures were the first to go. They did not appear sufficiently robust to withstand the (albeit) unfortunate circumstance Cork found themselves in. The sweeper system Cork employed did not appear to be required nor working on the night. When Kildare got a run of scores, Cork appeared unable to go into lockdown mode with a view to kicking back. The Kildare run kept going. The skillset then began to desert Cork as quality inter-county footballers kicked balls over the sideline and into the keeper’s hands from 20 yards out.

The mindset soon followed and the game was over with 20 minutes to go. Nearly every footballer in Ireland has gone through this cycle at some stage. Cork have been through it a few times, which begs the question whether the opportunity for a proper over-arching review has always been taken advantage of.

Since Cork’s collapse against Kerry in last year’s Munster final, Cork have tried to evolve a sweeper system as one of their key structures. At the very least, Cork’s management must be given credit for at least trying to adapt what is a traditional football team to a new reality. Against Kerry in the drawn Munster final, it was the right plan at the right time. On Saturday night, it was not.

In the first-half, with the aid of the wind and against a Division 3 team, this same sweeper system surrendered too much possession to Kildare. In the first- half, the Lilies simply kept the ball for long periods through effective hand passing and support play.

Coming into the game, Kildare’s Achilles heel had been their defensive frailty. They struggled with runners down the middle and gave away lots of frees. They had the worst defensive record across the top two flights of the league and had conceded an average of 18 points across five championship games. On Saturday night, they were given a new defensive string to their bow - possession of the football. When they had it, Cork couldn’t do any damage no matter how many brilliant forwards they might possess.

Dispensing with the sweeper and going man to man against Kildare, pushing up all over the pitch might have suited Brian Cuthbert’s men better on this occasion.

With the luxury of hindsight, it is arguable whether Cork’s sweeper system is properly aligned to the resources at their disposal. By taking two forwards out of their attack and into defence, you are asking the remaining four forwards to carry an additional workload. For Cork, this will likely involve blue chip players like Brian Hurley, Colm O’Neill, Donncha O’Connor and Paddy Kelly trying to grind through the work of six players.

Whilst not afraid of work, these guys are piano players, not piano shifters. Perhaps a simpler sweeper system could have been developed with this group. Lighter protection at the back with greater faith placed in a full back line. A sitting midfielder and a dropping centre back could be more natural for this Cork team to deploy, on occasion. Playmakers are more at home in the top half of the field. Firepower is most lethal closest to goal.

At a higher level, the structures at underage level in Cork are now the subject of debate. From the age of 13 to 17, the Rebel Óg system is accessing and more importantly developing players from all over the county.

In his former life, Brian Cuthbert and his colleague Kevin O’Donovan must take huge credit for developing and refining this system. However, when it comes to minor level, the benefits and knowledge of this Rebel Óg system have tended to be dispensed with.

In this case, the structures appear to be there. They just need to be taken advantage of more.

A review of skill set is more subtle but its importance is enormous. An example. In the ninth minute of the replayed Munster final, David Moran curled a 35 yard pass over the sweeper and into space for James O’Donughue. He did this off his left foot. One minute later, he pinged the same pass with the same weight and accuracy into space on the top right for O’Donoughue once more. This time with his right.

The ability to deploy from a composite skill base such as this on an awful night in heat of battle is the preserve of a top player. Many other players will compensate. They might run the ball, reshape to kick with the outside of their good foot. Valuable seconds are lost and we scratch our heads as to why the ball is moving slower.Without the ball, one of the more noticeable features of Cork’s skillset has been the over eagerness to tackle with a big shoulder. Mistimed shoulders on opposition kickers can lead to fouls being given away where the ball lands. A block or even a clever push of the hip might have had the same desired effect.

On Saturday night, the Kildare runners also slipped past some of these big attempts to shoulder and overlaps were created. Stopping a man and forcing him back is less box office but more reliable.

Mindset is the final piece of the review jigsaw. Mental frailty is a term bandied about a lot over the last two days. It has sounded like an incurable disease that must be tolerated by all Cork footballers. If that’s what’s being sold, any review should not buy into it. Mindset is not an affliction in isolation. Yes, the imagination has to be captured in the dressing room but the correct mindset is most often a by-product of a process whereby the structures and the skill sets are solid in the first place.

If perspective is indeed maintained in this review process, we will acknowledge the challenge on Saturday night was greater than expected against a team better than expected. On only three occasions (out of 20) have a beaten provincial finalist been able to turn around within a week and win a qualifier game. Equally we will acknowledge that it can and should have been done on this occasion. In 2009, Kerry found themselves in a very similar position after being beaten by Cork in a replayed Munster final. In round 3 of the qualifiers, Sligo missed a last-minute penalty in Tralee which would have seen Kerry being knocked out by a Division 4 team.

Even without the stark realities of loss, Kerry’s review process was strong. The reshuffle resulted in an All-Ireland title later that year. Fine lines. Much like Fionn Fitzgerald’s fine line strike that became the crossroads in Cork’s 2015 season. If the review addresses and corrects all of the issues with brutal honesty, that strike could, in time, even be perceived as a good thing.