Ronan McCarthy labels absence of Football Championship backdoor as ‘ridiculous’ and ‘lacking imagination’

Cork manager Ronan McCarthy. Picture: INPHO/Ryan Byrne

Cork manager Ronan McCarthy has said it is “ridiculous” that there is no backdoor in this year’s All-Ireland Football Championship, accusing Croke Park of showing “a lack of imagination” when drawing up the football season.

McCarthy was critical last year of the decision not to afford football teams a second chance during the winter All-Ireland Championship. The Cork manager remarked this evening that the decision to abandon the qualifier system for a second successive season was an even “worse” one.

McCarthy’s approach would have been to postpone promotion and relegation in this year’s League and to finish that competition after each county had played their three group games. This would have freed up the necessary weekends, he argued, to allow for a backdoor to be built into the 2021 Football Championship.

“I said last year that there should have been a backdoor. I thought it was ridiculous last year and I think it is worse this year that there is no backdoor for teams,” he said.

“You look at Barry O'Hagan and Caolan Mooney from Down, just as an example. They played their hearts out for their county on Sunday, gone now for the rest of the season.

“There was a lack of imagination. Surely the way to do it was to have no promotion or relegation in the League and let teams go away and play their three matches. Go straight into Championship then two weeks later, with a backdoor.

What I find amazing is that Croke Park’s own report showed that the cost of the injury scheme last year, in a shortened GAA season, was nearly what it was for a normal season. To then expect football teams to have four weeks of preparation to play four games in five weeks, each of them a must-win game, it just baffles me, to be honest.” 

On the subject of injuries, the Cork manager is confident all of his players currently on the injured list - with the exception of Cathail O’Mahony - will be available for selection for their July 10 Munster semi-final away to Limerick.

Daniel O'Mahony and Kevin Crowley were due to return to full training this evening. Sean Powter is set to return this weekend, with a similar timeline given for John O’Rourke and Ruairi Deane. Michael Hurley and Nathan Walsh have already resumed full training after injury lay-offs.

“Once we got through the Westmeath match, we were expecting lads to be coming back in bits and pieces in advance of the Limerick match. And that is the way it has played out.” 

McCarthy said he will be slow to take a risk with any player who does not resume training until the beginning of next week.

“The problem is the window is so tight. It is a bit like the Michael Murphy one at the weekend. If you play him, you run the risk of aggravating it, and then the player is out for four weeks or two matches.”

Echoing the recent comments of other inter-county managers, McCarthy was in favour of additional substitutions being allowed during this summer’s Championship, as had been the case during the League.

“I'd have gone back to six, the way it was before. I thought that was a fair number.”