Are Cork schools getting any closer to breaking Kerry's Corn Uí Mhuirí stranglehold?

With no Cork Corn Uí Mhuirí winner since Coláiste Chríost Rí in 2011, it's not too difficult to divine where Rebel county football ambitions need particular attention.

STRANGLEHOLD: Is there a Cork school still standing that can draw the curtain on Kerry’s 12-year dominance at Munster post-primary level? Photo: Don MacMonagle

WITH the Munster PPS SFC (Corn Uí Mhuirí) quarter-finals reached, it’s time to pose the annual question: Is there a Cork school still standing that can draw the curtain on Kerry’s 12-year dominance at Munster post-primary level?

The short answer is no, no there’s not. There’s also a strong chance that for the eighth time in the most recent nine seasons, including the one still ongoing, the Corn Uí Mhuirí final will be without Cork representation.

Instead of asking why this is so, probably smarter to ask what is being done on the red side of the border to end the run of Corn Uí Mhuirí successes by Kerry schools stretching all the way back to the first of Pobalscoil Chorca Dhuibhne’s four-in-a-row in early 2012.

Those charged with improving the health of Cork football certainly have had time enough to inspect the issue and apply remedying procedures. With no Cork Corn Uí Mhuirí winner since Coláiste Chríost Rí in 2011, this diagnosis of mediocre health has been evident for well over a decade now.

Even at the lower Frewen Cup age grade (Munster U17A), there's not been a Cork winner since 2016. That again was Coláiste Chríost Rí, a school now plying their trade at Senior B level.

A key strategy of the 2019-24 Cork football five-year plan was utilising county board staff to support second-level schools competing in the Corn Uí Mhuirí. The performance metric listed was success in the Corn Uí Mhuirí. But as we’ve already outlined, there’s been no success over the past five years, or the seven before that.

Only St Francis College Rochestown, in 2023, reached the concluding afternoon of action during the five years in question. This month last year, meanwhile, there was only one Cork school - Patrician Academy Mallow - among the four semi-finalists.

In an interview with the Southern Star last June, former Cork senior and minor manager Brian Cuthbert reckoned that there was “irony that we’re in the final year of Cork’s much-lauded plan to make the county a football force again, yet the final destination doesn’t seem any closer."

Cuthbert honed in on the role of the school in lifting all levels of Cork football. As principal of Bishosptown’s Scoil an Spioraid Naoimh, it’s an area he’s well placed to offer comment and recommendation. His proposal was the creation of football hubs, driven through schools, in the various regions of the county.

“What I would like to see happen is that particular schools would become hubs for clubs within particular regions so that you have absolute co-ordination within the region in terms of coach education, player development and competition.

“We’re trying to develop good players for Cork at senior level in ten years’ time. The school is a central tenant in that, but at the moment what we are doing is we are all in clubs around particular schools, all these clubs have huge rivalry with each other and I would say very few clubs are in constant communication with the coaches at schools level in terms of sharing all these players.” 

Fast forward six months and Cork CEO Kevin O’Donovan wrote in his annual report that the resources are “finally in place”, in terms of football coaching staff numbers, to deliver increased focus on and increased support for Cork schools.

The maximisation of resources, though, requires a plan, and on the same night O’Donovan delivered those comments to convention, the 2025-2030 Cork GAA strategic plan circulated to delegates was lacking in specific actions to tackle Cork football’s post-primary plight.

The sole progress indicator relating to post-primary activity in the 40-page booklet was to achieve central coordination of all fixture planning functions for Cork PPS games “to ensure increased player participation and optimum competition”.

As Cuthbert said, if Cork continue to do the same things, they’ll end up getting the same results. And with it, every January will be a recurring lamentation of the county’s inability to make an impression at the business end of the U19A blue riband.