Cork managers hit out at proposal to scrap championships

Cork’s junior football and intermediate hurling managers have criticised plans to abolish the championships from next year.

On Saturday week, Congress delegates will vote on a Central Council-endorsed motion to do away with the intermediate hurling competition, and replace the junior football equivalent with one involving the British champions, Kilkenny, and the eight Division 4 counties’ second-best teams.

The recommendations come from GAA director general Páraic Duffy’s November report on player burnout, overtraining, and fixtures.

Cork junior football manager Paul McCarthy has lambasted the proposal to end both competitions. “Croke Park seems to want to scrap everything at the minute. I always thought that the idea was the promotion of the game but their agenda seems to scrap everything and in my view promote this 11-a-side game [Super 11s hurling] in America and International Rules,” he said.

“While they can argue the top footballers want to play for Ireland, if it was scrapped I don’t think they would be too disappointed. But the focus seems to be on getting rid of our own internal competitions, which is farcical.”

Intermediate hurling manager Ronan Dwane says ending the All-Ireland IHC would be a backwards step. “This year could be a big plus for Cork because it is U25s and players from senior clubs are allowed, so it’s more of a second team and a development team. Intermediate has always given a lot of room for manoeuvre for fellas who are late developers. They might have played minor and U21 but at the ages of 22 or 23 they haven’t yet made the jump. If they have no representative level to play at, it’s a worry and I don’t really see these competitions interfering with the club.

“From a football perspective, look at the Cork team that won the 2010 All-Ireland — seven or eight of them won All-Ireland junior medals before that. A lot of good came out of that, as it did for Clare’s hurlers in 2013, the year after some of them were playing intermediate. I see the competitions as being of a benefit now more than ever.”

Dwane’s point is backed up by Galway’s Anthony Cunningham last year. He took charge of both senior and intermediate panels, springing intermediates Conor Whelan and Shane Maloney into the All-Ireland senior championship: Whelan scored 1-2 against Cork in a quarter-final while Maloney came off the bench to score the winning point against Tipperary in the semi-final.

Dwane suggests the Christy Ring winners could join the intermediate competition at the All-Ireland semi-finals stage in late summer, thereby adding to their season, which as of now finishes in early June. “It would give them more inter-county games. A lot more could be done for the competition if there was thought put into it,” he said.

Combined with the proposal to transform the U21 All-Ireland football championship into an U20 developmental one, McCarthy fears there may be a drop-off among footballers if they are not provided with the necessary platforms to play senior inter-county.

“It’s very disappointing that a huge amount of players might finish up at U21 level and there is nothing there to help them bridge the gap to senior level. Only so many are able to walk straight into a senior panel from U21s and that may now become U20, which could prove even more difficult. You could end up completely losing a lot of 19- and 20-year-olds to the game and they could join other codes. They all aspire to play for their counties,” said McCarthy.

“All the Munster counties take part in the junior championship. An x amount of them do in Leinster, sometimes only two in Connacht, and Cavan are the only Ulster team and they play in Leinster. All counties should try and participate and don’t let Croke Park decide everything for them.”