Keith Ricken: ‘There are more young lads in summer camps in Cork than there is in the whole of Connacht’

Embarrassing. A crisis. Unacceptable. And those were the more moderate terms used in the media to describe the state of Cork football just last March following the county’s relegation to Division 3 of the Allianz league.

Now, on the cusp of August, the Cork seniors are still in the Championship, preparing to wrap up their Super 8s campaign this weekend, a day after the county’s U20 side compete in the EirGrid All-Ireland final against Dublin. The following weekend, the Cork minors will compete in the All-Ireland semi-finals of that competition.

Yet for Cork U20 manager Keith Ricken this isn’t some phoenix from the flames scenario or double-quick journey from bust to boom.

“I didn’t get that sense of negativity as people maybe did from the outside looking in,” said Ricken, who doubles as Cork IT’s GAA development officer. “Rightly or wrongly, I just didn’t get it because I see the standard of football, the standard of footballers, the clubs, the structures that are there, the work that’s going on in development squads and all that kind of stuff.

“And I know a lot of the lads that are playing with the Cork seniors — it’s like riding a bike, I mean you can’t unlearn how to ride a bike.

“You mightn’t become good at it for a while but you’ll eventually get back on it. And it’s all performance-based, as opposed to crisis-based.

“I felt it was always going to come good, that these footballers were going to come good, the lads who were there for the previous few years, they are good footballers, it’s not that they ‘were’ good footballers, they ‘are’ good footballers.”

Ricken took over the U20 squad earlier this year and admitted that some didn’t share his optimism and painted a less than flattering picture of the Cork football scene at the time.

The 2018 season had ended for the Cork seniors with heavy defeats to Kerry and Tyrone, while the U20s were knocked out by Kerry in the provincial final.

“I took over the U20s in January and people were saying, ‘Oh, it’s very bad’ and what not, but there were 30-odd lads that turned up the first night,” he said.

Any young fella I’ve ever rang, or anybody I’ve ever asked to get involved, it was all very positive, nobody turned me down.

“So I never experienced that negativity. Or maybe I did and I just chose to ignore it.

“The whole thing has been positive from my end from the very start. I experienced the frustration and I appreciate the frustrations but the negativity I wouldn’t have got that. There’s always hope. Cork is a huge county, there are more young lads in summer camps in Cork than there is in the whole of Connacht. That’s how big Cork is. You have to have hope. The only time you lose hope is if you go over to the pitches and it’s all green and there are no worn patches and there’s no-one playing there, then you can start losing hope.”

It’s that can-do attitude that Ricken’s players displayed last weekend when they came from seven points down to beat Tyrone and secure their All-Ireland final place.

The Cork boss is happy that they’ve won games both ways so far this summer, as commanding front runners in the Munster final against Kerry and as never say die grafters against the Ulster champions.

Dublin may prove their stiffest challenge yet, particularly with a full-forward in 18-year-old Ciarán Archer who has been shooting goals for fun, a remarkable six in the Leinster championship alone and another two against Galway last weekend.

In total, the St Maurs attacker, who has just completed his Leaving Cert, has scored 8-30 (2-8, 1-8, 3-8 & 2-6) in four games.

“From what I saw, I don’t think Ciarán Archer takes the kick-outs, catches the kick-outs or kicks the ball into himself,” said Ricken. “So there’s a very good team around Ciarán Archer giving him a good supply of ball. He’s the end product, the guy that stamps the box but there’s a lot of people involved in making the product so we have to worry about everybody on the field, not just him.”