Still an hour there for the Barrs to avoid double group stage exit
St. Finbarr's manager Brian Roche (left) and selector Ian Keeler against Mallow during the McCarthy Insurance Group Cork PSFC at Grenagh. Picture: Eddie O'Hare
County football champions in 2021. County finalists in both codes in 2022. County semi-finalists in both codes in 2023. Group stage fallers in both codes in 2024.
Hold the reins on that latter verdict. The Barrs story for this season is not yet scripted and gone to the printers.
There’s still time to change the closing act. There’s still an hour in which to avoid an unthinkably early championship finish for the Togher club.
If Valley Rovers succeed in taking a point with them back to Inishshannon on Sunday evening, the Barrs footballers will endure the same group stage elimination as befell the club hurlers three weeks ago. They’ll be the first Barrs football team to fail to navigate the group stages of the current five-year-old format.
A club that contended for a Cork double the past two years to having neither team make the quarter-finals 12 months later is a fairly wild swing, should it transpire. And if the unthinkable does transpire, there will be no need for recriminating post-mortems. There is no internal melee or malaise to be dug up and examined.
We’re blue in the face from pointing out that injuries have been unkind to the Barrs in 2024. Billy Hennessy offered defensive stability in both the hurling and football rearguards. Sam Ryan is one of their outstanding man-marking corner-backs on the football side of the house. Neither is available for this championship.
Conor Cahalane broke a bone in his hand a week before the championship threw in. Fellow Cork hurler Ethan Twomey sat out their season-ending defeat to Fr O’Neill’s. The footballers spent 20 minutes of the Round 2 defeat to Mallow operating with a man less.
An accumulation of factors and missing faces have counted against them.
What these absentees, and the results they’ve fed, have shown up is insufficient depth. The actions of the respective managements have reaffirmed this.
The hurlers made only one substitute when failing to rescue their season against Fr O’Neill’s, the footballers made only one more than that when losing to Mallow and thrusting their championship involvement onto the ropes.
Brian Roche’s footballers could very well deliver the necessary result at Coachford to prevent double group stage elimination. But the Barrs are the Barrs. They’ve no interest in simply being involved in the championship. They’ve no interest in limping through.
Sunday, 4pm offers the opportunity, when pressure will be at its peak, to belatedly begin imposing themselves on this year’s championship.
In the same Group C, Douglas will slip into a relegation play-off should they fail to take something off already qualified Mallow. This is the same Douglas that has made a fine habit over the past decade of accumulating county minor titles. The same Douglas that continues to confound over their inability to turn those underage successes into something meaningful at senior level.
Douglas were quarter-finalists last year, semi-finalists three years ago. The graph has changed direction.
For so long, St Michaels' graph had frustratingly plateaued. They could not elevate it beyond the point of the premier intermediate final. Then premier intermediate got a do-over and was rebranded Senior A. They got to the final of that too and still couldn’t go beyond.
Eventually in 2022, at the seventh attempt, they moved beyond the second-tier final and moved up. A draw against Clonakilty at Bandon tomorrow moves the city club into a first top tier quarter-final since 1991.
Michael’s won a county U19 title two years ago. They had five players - Michael O’Connell, Rory O’Shaughnessy, Fionnan Leahy, Luke O’Herlihy, and Rory Kavanagh - on the Cork U20 panel this year. All five are senior starters. A club travelling in the right direction.
September 3, 2022. That remains the date of Ilen Rovers’ most recent Cork championship win. Since then, they’ve played six and lost six. Their average losing margin across the six defeats was nine points.
Relegated from premier senior in 2021. Relegated from senior A in 2023. If the rot isn’t stopped against Aghada this weekend, they’ll find themselves an hour from premier intermediate relegation in 2024.
The sole winner-takes-all fixture at premier intermediate level this weekend involves Castletownbere and Rockchapel. But progression seems almost irrelevant in light of recent events.
Castletownbere will take to the field at Cill na Martra without their goalkeeper of earlier rounds, 41-year-old Dave Fenton having passed away three weeks ago. His teammates go out to honour his memory.
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