'Clubs don't see the benefit' - Muskerry forced to hand walkover in Cork championship

The division is unable to field a team for tomorrow’s Cork PSFC tie against Imokilly 

Beara's Cillian O'Shea and Eanna Murphy tackling Cathal Vaughan of Muskerry in the Cork PSFC in Dunmanway

Muskerry’s inability to field a team for tomorrow’s Cork PSFC tie against Imokilly has seen the East Cork division handed a walkover.

Muskerry and Imokilly were due to meet at Ovens on Thursday evening to determine which side would face Avondhu in the semi-finals of the county football championship colleges/divisions unseeded section, but in a statement released this morning, Muskerry has said that “due to circumstances beyond the control of the Muskerry board we will not be in a position to field a senior football team in the next round”.

The division’s inability to get 15 players together comes less than one week after Muskerry fielded a team for their opening round game of the Cork PSFC colleges/divisions section against Beara, a fixture they lost 0-16 to 0-10.

Muskerry used 18 players during that game, pulled from eight different clubs (Iveleary, Donoughmore, Clondrohid, Kilmichael, Ballinora, Aghabullogue, Canovee, and Inniscarra).

Iveleary are one of four premier intermediate clubs in the division, the other three - Cill na Martra, Naomh Abán, and Macroom - had no players involved in last week’s Muskerry defeat to Beara.

Muskerry chairman John Feeney believes a lot of clubs don’t see any benefit in releasing their top players for divisional action.

“When I heard we would be playing divisional games in June, five and six weeks out from the beginning of the county championship proper, I thought that would be fine, but even at that, some of the clubs are slow to release players,” Feeney told the Irish Examiner.

"There is this constant battle. A lot of clubs don’t see any benefit in Muskerry teams playing. There is the difficulty.

“If you said to me at the start of the year that Muskerry footballers would fail to field and the hurlers would have 32 togged out, I’d have been scratching my head.

“Talking to some of the clubs, they are struggling to field teams themselves, they have picked up injuries, they are trying to sort out teams a month out from championship and so the last thing they want is to pick up another injury in a Muskerry game.” 

The winners of the Avondhu-Imokilly semi-final will play the winners of the second semi between Beara and Carbery. Whichever of the quartet emerges from the unseeded section, they will join UCC, MTU Cork, and Duhallow in the semi-finals proper of the colleges/divisions section.