Cork's boys of summer aim to stretch minor resurgence into autumn
“Momentum is a very important thing,” begins Cork minor football manager Bobbie O’Dwyer.
The sentiment, though it would have been perfectly applicable, is not in reference to his own players and their success in turning around a championship campaign which got off to the worst possible start imaginable.
O’Dwyer is instead discussing Cork football as a whole, the restorative summer it has enjoyed, and how the respective runs of the senior and U20 sides trickled down and had some a hugely positive impact on his U17 group.
With the All-Ireland U20 silverware already secured, Cork stand one hour from a first underage double since 1981.
Developing players and laying the foundation for them to progress up through the ranks may be the name of the game at minor level, but silverware is a significant help in achieving that long-term goal.
Should they emerge victorious tomorrow afternoon, you can be certain there’ll be a long queue or players looking to knock down Keith Ricken’s door for a place in his U20 squad during the winter months.
“It’s something that, to a degree, we stress,” replied O’Dwyer when asked were his 15, 16, and 17-year old players conscious of their role in Cork football picking itself up off the floor this summer.
“All of us are very proud of our county and we work hard to represent it in the best way we possibly can. The boys understand where they feed into all of this, they’re good kids and know what they’re at.”
The manager added: “Success breeds success and we’ve been lucky as we’ve come on this year with the success of the U20s.
“We were in the dressing room in Tullamore for our All-Ireland quarter-final and were waiting to go onto the pitch after the U20s had won their semi-final against Tyrone.
“The visible lift to the players when the word came in that Cork had won — you could see the chests puffing out, you could see the boys wanting to get out onto the field, success does breed success, there’s no doubt about it. Momentum is a very important thing when the bit of confidence is there.
“You get confidence from winning.”
In the same way his players have grown from the extra four months of top-level collective training denied to recent Cork minor teams as a result of repeated Munster semi-final exits, O’Dwyer believes it has been beneficial to operate such a large panel for all of the season.
Only 24 can tog out tomorrow, pulled from 21 different clubs, but there’ll be another 14 in the Hogan Stand who have put in the same effort as those listed on the match programme.
“What makes the team successful is that number 38 is trying just as hard as number one. It can be very tough the week before we play a championship game and you’re telling someone who has worked just as hard as anyone else that he hasn’t made it.
“It is one of the downsides, but I stress, they are fantastic young men, they teach you so much. I’m a parent of four and I think I’ve been through it with my four but then you learn so much more here.
“They carry themselves so well. The way they play football is a manifestation of how they view themselves.
“We spoke to the lads at the start of the year about how we look at three things when we’re trying to develop a player — their attitude; what’s their commitment like; their humility and ability to link in, the understanding that the team trumps the individual.
Once they fit in, and they’re all superb lads, they’re going to develop. Not all of them are going to go on to play senior football for Cork, but the hope is that they’ll go on to become top-class young people.
No more than Cork, Galway lost their opening championship game of the summer — a two-point defeat to Roscommon at Dr Hyde Park — and so were in danger of failing to secure a top-three finish in the round-robin section of the Connacht championship.
Sligo was next up and despite a promising first half, two significant bumps in the road were hit upon the restart.
“If we lost to Sligo, we were out,” explains Galway manager Dónal Ó Fátharta.
“We were going well, but conceded a goal just after half-time and then lost our centre-back to a sending off.
“We were under pressure but we managed to come through with 14 men. That gave the boys a platform and some confidence going into a do-or-die game in Castlebar against Mayo. Thankfully, we won it to make sure of our progress.
“Now, we lost the Connacht final by a point, but they showed a lot of resilience to come back and beat Kildare and Kerry.
“We were in the final last year, came up against a very strong Kerry team and just fell short. We are up against a strong Cork team this year. It is a different group of players this year, but the objective is the same. When you get to Croke Park, it is there for winning.”
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