The need for a culture change in Cork

Kevin Clancy, Cork’s sport psychologist during their 2010 All-Ireland success, outlines the need for change within Leeside GAA.

Chances are you won’t know me. In what feels like a previous life, I was part of Conor Counihan’s backroom team with the Cork footballers between 2009 and 2013. One of the faceless tracksuits who sat in the nice seats behind him on the big days in Croke Park, Killarney, Páirc Uí Chaoimh and the Gaelic Grounds. I was the team’s sport psychologist and was there in 2010 when Sam arrived back on the Lee for the first time in 20 years. A fantastic day for a group who had toiled for years to get to the top of the Hogan.

And yet as I look at things now, as a Cork supporter, it saddens me that September 19th 2010 is the last day a Cork men’s senior team, in either code, have taken home an All-Ireland title. Only once since then have we even been back to a September showpiece, when our hurlers went down to Clare in 2013. One U-17 hurling All-Ireland title, won in August, is all Cork GAA has to show, at all levels, since the footballers kicked off the decade on the summit of the mountain. For a county of our size, with our population base and passion for gaelic games, that is not acceptable.