Managers mulling over kickout and foul options, says Cork boss John Cleary

The Rebels start their championship campiagn against Limerick this weekend.

Cork senior football manager John Cleary at a media conference at SuperValu Pairc Ui Chaoimh, this week. Picture: Larry Cummins

A game of chance. That is John Cleary’s assessment of Gaelic football’s kick-out puzzle. Taking the chance out of restarts is the summer riddle to be solved.

The Cork manager has plenty interesting to say on the subject, so we don’t want to delay in introducing his thoughts. There is need, mind, to unfurl and fill out the backdrop.

In the second half of last month’s Division 2 League decider, the Cork kick-out significantly malfunctioned. They were hemmed in for a full quarter of an hour. Out of 10 successive Pa Doyle kick-outs, nine were not retained. Meath mined 0-5 in the process. It was the game-deciding period.

Short to the left or long to the right, Cork could not get hands on ball.

Sean Brennan and Meath endured similar, if not quite as severe kick-out turbulence in the opening half. Of a seven-in-a-row sequence, six restarts were lost. Cork gained 0-3 from such.

“It is a feature of games all over the place now. Kerry lost seven on the spin and Donegal got 10 points in the game after ours, so it's not alone to us that it's happening,” said Cleary “You try to have a plan, but a lot depends on the opposition when they push up. When they get momentum, how do you break that? That's something we have been working on, and hopefully it will be better going forward.” 

In the cauldron of Croke Park, management getting a message into the goalkeeper or outfield players to go elsewhere with the kick-out during a period where they’re pinned in is a non-starter. You have to come armed with a series of plans and you also have to have players capable of adapting on the fly.

“Kick-outs would be at the discretion of Pa [Doyle] or Micheál [Aodh Martin], and also the players around the middle. Players out the middle would call it, maybe a full-back would call it at other times, because if you're on the line and the thing is 70, 80 yards away, you're not going to get a message in.

“But we'd be no different to other teams that we would have a plan for different situations, like if you lost two or three together, try something different. But the way the new game has gone, the opposing team has a lot of the advantage now.

“Facing towards the ball, the opposition can really push up, and on the other hand then, when we actually broke the momentum against Meath, we got two goals from our kick-out, so it's a game of chance in a lot of it.” 

There is suspense over whether Pa Doyle retains the No.1 shirt for Sunday’s Munster quarter-final at home to Limerick, or whether Micheál Aodh Martin is promoted off the bench. Irrespective of the goalkeeper’s identity, there is suspense surrounding the Cork kick-out approach and whether there’ll be even a slight tweak from what we saw in the League.

But the real suspense is how Cork will react and respond next time they find themselves boxed in. How do they take chance out of their kick-out?

“If you're facing a kick-out, normally, for example, you could be conservative and give them the kick-out back in the full-back line, but the way the game has gone, a kick-out won nearly means a shot the other side,” Cleary rationalised.

“So, what's the alternative to that? It's to do a press, take a chance, and the reward can be very big. Then if you lose it, you scramble and get back as best you can. And look, maybe the worst that can happen then in that situation is giving away a one-pointer, which you possibly would have given away anyway if you gave up the kick-out.” 

The happenings of the Division 2 decider informed much of our midweek conversation with Cleary. News yesterday that referees agreed at a pre-championship meeting that Cork should have had a last-minute free advanced 50 metres after Maurice Shanley was stopped from taking a quick free by Meath's James Conlon won’t bring much comfort at this point.

The Cork manager is adamant that unless games return to being finished as they were last year when play continues past the hooter until the ball goes dead, the final moments and minutes of games will be one long act of cynicism by the team in front.

“All you'll do is foul, foul, foul. That's what we'd be instructing our team to do – foul. They can't get it up then in 20, 25 seconds. I still think the old rule was better to finish the game,” he said.

“People talked about Kerry (just before half time in the final) last year, but I thought it was the most intriguing bit of play the whole year. It was a fantastic end to a half. So what that you had to wait two and a half minutes for it.

“There's a bit of an anti-climax at the end of games now. Instead of it being positive, there's a negative. People go away after the game feeling that it finished on a negative.”