Cork’s Division 3 plunge ‘embarrassing’

Former Cork junior football manager Paul McCarthy has labelled the county’s relegation to Division 3 “embarrassing” and “unacceptable”.

McCarthy, who served as Cork junior manager from 2012 to 2017, delivering All-Ireland glory in 2013, has also questioned the input of former Kildare and Wexford boss Jason Ryan who came on board in an advisory capacity during the off-season.

At Tuesday’s Cork County Board meeting, chairperson Tracey Kennedy described Cork’s demotion to the third tier of league football as “extremely disappointing”, but informed delegates that any meaningful discussion on the current state of Cork football would not take place until after their championship campaign had concluded.

“It was obviously an extremely disappointing conclusion to the league. I suppose we cannot lose sight of the fact they won two of their last three games, but, at the same time, it is not where anybody wanted to be,” she said.

“I know there are a lot of people here disappointed and annoyed by the situation, as, obviously, I am myself, but given we have a championship campaign ahead of us, I’d prefer to hold discussion on it until after [the championship], bearing in mind we expect these players to go out in a Munster championship in a short enough space of time.”

McCarthy disagreed with the chairperson’s approach however, and said “it is not on” to defer discussion until later in the year.

“It has to be stated quite clearly that this is very embarrassing for Cork to be in Division 3. It is not acceptable,” he said.

We’ve landed there after some very poor years. To end up in Division 3 and to brush it off and say we’ll discuss it at the end of the year is not on. You’d have to seriously question what is going on

“We brought in a so-called advisor and you’d have to question what he is bringing to the party.”

Cork goalkeeper Micheál Martin, meanwhile, feels the team turned a slight corner in their last three league games, securing two victories. Of course, these results proved insufficient in preserving the county’s Division 2 status.

“We do feel there was a turn, in that the last three games were much better than what we showed earlier in the spring. But we left ourselves a lot to do. After four games, we were in a position that was going to be hard to come back from. Very disappointing to go down,” said Martin, who was between the sticks for the games against Meath, Tipperary, and Donegal.

Martin injured his groin in the second half of the Donegal defeat and will be under pressure to be fit for Nemo Rangers’ Cork SFC opener against Valley Rovers on April 6.

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