‘If you're looking for an advert for lads wanting to play championship for their division, that was it'

Divisions in county championships? While administrators whistle encouraging noises, the tone of the narrative around the topic is generally negative

Sat, 15 Jun, 2024 - 12:11

Darragh Leen

It wasn’t designed as a showcase for the standard of football that divisional teams can dish up, but it certainly provided a tasty morsel.

In Glenville, north of Cork city on Thursday night, Muskerry and Avondhu shared 35 scores, six of them goals, in a preliminary Cork SFC tie, and in doing so, offered a platform once more for players from the smallest GAA clubs to play the highest tier of football within their county.

Whether it be Cork and Kerry (two of only three remaining counties who permit such combinations with Roscommon), it remains the single biggest selling point for persisting with divisions (more so than colleges) in the county championship firmament.

And with such prevailing winds in their face, the divisions need every bit of encouragement they can get. While administrators whistle encouraging noises towards the divisions, the tone of the narrative around the topic is generally negative. In fact, it’s almost universally negative, and so it’s not altogether surprising that Imokilly and Beara had already pulled stumps from the competition before Thursday’s opening contest in Glenville.

What was delivered was a cracking, open game of football with start turns like Mitchelstown’s Sean Walsh, Mark Lenahan of Buttevant and Glanworth’s Jamie Fogarty all displaying their wares in a losing effort. The blow of defeat was compounded by the knowledge that that’s it for the Avondhu’s Premier SFC campaign. With the withdrawals, they were reduced from three games to one and Thursday night became knockout. Little wonder then their management struggled to fill the jerseys.

“There was a lot of phone calls on Thursday,” mentor John Paul Cotter admitted. “Between three and four o’clock we had 12 players. “We were grateful that we ended up with 19.”

After a bright start, their luck was about to turn with a debatable penalty awarded to Muskerry. “I’ve asked the umpire and the referee and they gave me two different stories. It was the turning point, it gave them the momentum.” Cotter and his fellow mentors (coach Ephie Fitzgerald was not available on the night) must have also been delighted at their second half rally when they reduced Muskerry’s advantage to two points, 3-15 to 3-13 down the stretch. But the realisation that their campaign with the division was done wasn’t long sinking in.

“Cork football is sort of on the crest of a wave at this moment in time. For divisions, there is surely a better plan that they can come up with. We should have had two more games that we were aiming for but that’s it now, gone, done and dusted.

“Nowadays, if you're a dual player you’re playing 18 league matches. You’re not playing championship till the end of July, start of August, that’s not right.

“If you go through our clubs that play intermediate football, Kilshannig, Mitchelstown, Glanworth, Kildorrery, even just those four clubs, they’re riddled with injuries. We had a big panel at the start of the year, we had a couple of training sessions. In my book we have 18 players missing that were part of the original panel. Four lads are actually on holiday too. We had lads coming up from junior teams and fair play to them they did very well but not having that experience is crucial.”

On the broader question of whether some divisions care more than others, Cotter added: “It all goes back to the fixtures for me again, because clubs have fixtures as well in between the divisional games and it’s hard for the club managers to let their players go. I’m always adamant that no matter what club or division you play for you deserve a chance. Hence why we had five junior players. But you want to bring them in with the most experienced guys, because they learn from them and then play better as a result.”

Muskerry manager Conor Hurley seemed to very much be of the same sentiment when speaking post-match.

“If you just look at it, we had nine clubs represented on our panel so if you were looking for an advert for lads wanting to play for their division, that was it.

“From our perspective we want Muskerry to stay going and we hope all the clubs in Muskerry do well in the upcoming games. Then we get them after they do their business with their clubs in the first round. Obviously some of them are in the same grade so it’s making for an interesting dynamic.

“Preparation hasn't been ideal but at the end of the day lads are going to prioritise their clubs at the moment and when they get the chance to play with their division they’re proud to do so.

“We’ll probably try and play a few practice matches in the down period but the big thing is these lads are training hard with their clubs so we’ll get them whenever we can and we’re just glad to have them when we do. We just have to make the best of it.”