Why a culture of co-operation is key to cracking the dual code at club level

From Cratloe in Clare to Cork's St. Finbarr's, the approaches to succeeding on two fronts can differ. But an essential ingredient is mutual understanding

Sat, 10 Sep, 2022 - 07:05

Kieran Shannon

For a man who doubles up as not just the longest-serving manager in county football but is still a club manager on top of it, Colm Collins has been somewhat a man of leisure this past week.

It’s not that his Cratloe footballers are already out of the senior football championship; they’re very much still in it, being one of only two teams in the county to win all three of their group games to secure an automatic quarter-final slot.

It’s that most of his players are also very much still in the Clare senior hurling championship and have a game tomorrow. Win it and they also will have finished their group with a 100 percent win record (lose and they still go into the quarter-finals as a top seed, having won the head-to-head against reigning champions Ballyea by thumping them, 2-21 to 0-14).

So, ever since his footballers beat Lissycasey last Saturday afternoon, almost all of them have gone into hurling mode for the week. And even they took the session off on Tuesday, Collins’ counterpart on the hurling, Conor Earley, being as mindful of the needs, desires and demands of his players.

The five or six lads who only play football had a bit of a kickaround and workout on Wednesday night alright for about an hour but that was it. The rest of the fellas were hurling under Earley on Thursday. In Cratloe the two codes don’t merely have a truce. They have a formula that has ensured that for more than a decade no group of players in the county and very few in the country have had more big days and extensive campaigns in Champo.

“The way we work it is that basically if we have a football game at the weekend then we train only football that week; then the following week it’s hurling,” explains Collins, who has remained Cratloe’s football manager through all his nine years as the county manager. “Any physical or gym stuff is done together.

“At the start of the season we give the lion’s share over to hurling. In the football we’re only in Division 3 which doesn’t bother us really with the programme of games the lads collectively have; we’ve won and contested county football finals from Division 3. But when all the lads are back from the county and it’s coming up to championship, they each get equal treatment.”

It’s an arrangement that the players seem to strongly favour; even with Conor McGrath, the former hurling county man and All-Star, eventually choosing this year to exclusively focus on the small ball to further help manage the injuries which hampered and shortened his county career, 12 of the 17 players who got game-time against Lissycasey last week will have a hurl in their hand tomorrow warming up against O’Callaghans Mills.

But it’s also an arrangement that has its critics. Since the club pulled off a remarkable double in 2014 (following up on the hurlers’ breakthrough win of 2009 and the footballers’ of 2013), the club has not won a county outright in either code. Collins has heard the inferences and the accusations straight out. One code (usually the football) is costing them in the other. They’d be better off if they focused primarily on the one. While he hears it though, he doesn’t buy it.

“There’s a narrative out there alright put forward by people who can be mischievous or just misled that one would be better without the other. But my answer to that is why are teams that play just the one code not winning or doing a lot better than they are.

“I honestly believe the strength of our club has been that culture of co-operation. Now, it’s not easy to maintain and there are people who will try to undermine it. But I’ve seen it in other clubs around the county where once you have acrimony between the two codes they both suffer, even the traditionally stronger one. In fact it’s often the traditionally stronger one that suffers the most.

“Every club and situation is different. But in a place like where we are, it definitely makes most sense if everyone is catered for and lads can play both sports.”

He only has to look at his own two sons, Podge and Seán. Both former All-Ireland winning U21 hurlers, both members of the 2013 panel that brought a missing person called Liam MacCarthy back to the county for the first time in 16 years, and both now former dual county players but still county senior footballers. They still hurl with their club. Still love hurling with their club one week, then the next week playing football for them.

Since the zenith that was 2014 for the club, there has been only year – 2021 – whereby they failed to reach a semi-final in either code. They’ve reached four further county finals. So, yeah, they haven’t yet gotten back to their desired destination on the steps of the stand in Cusack Park to lift either the Canon Hamilton or Jack Daly but what journeys they’ve had. That’s why they’ve signed up for another double mission this year. Sure what else would you prefer to be doing on a weekend off?

“It’s definitely helped us more than it has hurt us,” says their dad. “Playing both has definitely helped our game intelligence and decision-making, the trust and understanding the lads have in and of each other; there’s a lot of stuff as a coach you don’t have to bother with because they’ve hurled with each other the weekend before.

“And the other thing you find is that when lads go from one sport to the other they have a massive appetite for it. They’re mad for hurling after a week of football and then it’s vice-versa the week after.

“The lads have had some tough defeats over the years alright. But when you walk out of a dressing room after losing a county semi-final so pissed off and miserable, it’s massive to be able to wake up the following morning and realise you’ve another county semi-final the week after. Instead of waiting a year to get back, you’ve only a week. That’s been such a positive for us. Brilliant.”

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Long before he ever moved to the traditionally hurling-only environs of Cratloe, Collins used to work as a school teacher in Greenmount on the suburbs of Cork city before returning to his native Kilmihil at weekends to play football for the club. To keep his fitness and football ticking over in midweek, he’d regularly go down to the nearby club grounds of St Finbarr’s. It was as much an education and inspiration as it was a workout. There he’d watch some of the finest hurlers in the county – Jimmy Barry-Murphy, Donal O’Grady, Christy Ryan, John Allen – hurl for an hour, then throw their hurleys on the bank and play some football for three-quarters of an hour or so. It left a lasting impression.

"That is why the Barrs win so many counties and All-Irelands in both codes and that is something I’d like to replicate if at all possible someday somewhere else," said Collins.

These days the Barrs are back winning football county and provincial titles and their hurlers are back in a county quarter-final but they’ve learned that being a dual senior club doesn’t necessarily mean having a core group of dual senior players. Of the team that won the Munster football title earlier this year, only three also play senior hurling for the club: Billy Hennessy, Brian Hayes and Ethan Twomey. Throw in the three Cahalanes who play their senior football for Castlehaven and their hurling for the Barrs and that’s still just six dual players. In a county like Cork the prevailing sentiment, whatever about wisdom, would seem to be that if you want to win a senior championship you can still have dual clubs but few dual players.

In Douglas, who are through to this year’s hurling county quarter-finals but now out of the football, special talents like the Cadogans and Shane Kingston, who would have played at a high level of football for the county, no longer play the big ball for the club, just as Seán Powter, a fine underage county hurler, now exclusively plays football. Only a handful of players in the club now play senior for both, with just two getting game-time in the club’s opening games in either championship.

But that does not mean the dual club player is an extinct species. A comprehensive study the Echo’s Denis Hurley conducted last month revealed that Fermoy, a senior A club in both codes, had 10 players who featured in the opening game of both team’s championships. In the case of Na Piarsaigh, it was 12, with Newcestown, 13, while leading the way with an astonishing 14 was Kanturk.

Does it work for them? That depends on your definition of success. This year they were up hurling in the senior championship, though they didn’t make it out of their group. Their footballers are back in the semi-finals of the premier intermediate championship. They’ve current and former players on both county senior panels. Who’s to say it doesn’t work for them?

There’s all kinds of ways to roll both out.

Just because Nemo are more serious at and about their football doesn’t mean they’re against hurling; the majority of their senior football panel also play some junior hurling, so long as they know what takes precedence.

When Dublin football legend Paul Curran was the football manager out in the hurling stronghold of Cuala during both Covid years, he found the two could co-exist; they won the senor B football championship both years, enough to win promotion up to the main league where last week they dumped another of his old teams, Ballymun Kickhams, out of the championship.

“The way we did it the two years I was there, if the lads played a hurling game at the weekend, they’d be back with us on the Tuesday but wouldn’t train," Curran said. "They’d only train properly with us on the Thursday before our championship match. And it worked. We had five or six lads, including obviously Con (O’Callaghan) playing both. We’d have liked a few more but with the lads who did come over it worked very well.”

And then there’s Wexford where of course they run off the hurling championship first, then go exclusively into football. Each county, even each club, have their own way. Either way, if you’re a dual player with a Cuala, Cratloe or a Kanturk, it’s some journey you’re on, wherever it may ultimately take you.