The Cork U21 hurlers won't be short on talent for next summer

TWO years, 1998 and 2001, have been referenced so often with regards Cork underage hurling that they are practically tattooed into the memory bank at this stage.

1998, of course, was the year that Cork last won the U21 All-Ireland Hurling Championship. 

And 2001 the last time Cork won the Minor All-Ireland Hurling Championship.

To put it into context, the players lining out for Cork in next year’s U17 championship will have been born the year Tomás O’Leary lifted the Irish Press Cup in 2001.

It has been too long.

Of course, John Considine coached the Cork U17 side to the first-ever edition of that All-Ireland championship this year, and with that championship replacing the Minor All-Ireland from 2018 onwards as the flagship hurling juvenile title in the country Cork can claim that the monkey is off the back in that respect.

Unfortunately though, Denis Ring’s talented minor side could not bag the last ever U18 minor All-Ireland this year, when they went down narrowly to a Jack Canning inspired Galway side. That minor team had enjoyed an incredible season, and deserved to sign off as All-Ireland champions, but such is sport at the top level that you do not always get what you deserve.

We will see a lot more of that talented minor team before too long, however, and perhaps under Ring again next year at U21 level.

The likes of Ger Collins, Sean O’Leary-Hayes, James Keating, Ger Mellerick, Liam O’Shea, Robert Downey, Evan Sheehan and Brian Turnbull will all already be on new U21 manager Ring’s shortlist when it comes to compiling a squad for the 2018 campaign, although experience tells us that talented minors can often struggle to make the jump up the U21 level.

And while the 2017 minors were a special bunch there is no need for Ring and his selectors to base his U21 side around them either. In fact, he might be tempted to hold the majority of them back for now and instead build the 2018 Cork U21 team around the gifted group of minors from 2015 who as a group will feel that they underachieved at that level.

This group included All-Star Mark Coleman, Darragh Fitzgibbon and Shane Kingston for starters. They had beaten Limerick easily in the early stages of the Munster Championship that year and looked like genuine All-Ireland contenders, but then Kingston broke his leg and Cork managed to rack up 15 wides when they met Limerick again in the crucial Munster semi-final, before going down to a late Peter Casey goal.

It was a cruel blow for that team as a collective, but one would hope lessons were learned that night that will help them in 2018.

The Cork team on that night included Declan Dalton in goal and had the likes of David Griffin, Mark Coleman, Eoghan Murphy, David Lowney in defence with John Cashman and Billy Hennessy coming off the bench. Chris O’Leary and Darragh Fitzgibbon started at midfield, while even in Shane Kingston’s absence Cork were still able to field a forward line of the calibre of Liam Healy, Michael O’Halloran, Tim O’Mahony; Sean Powter, Cathal Cormack and John Looney, with Robbie O’Flynn and Billy Dunne coming on as replacements.

That bunch really should have graced Croke Park but fate decided otherwise.

The 2016 minors flattered to deceive when leading eventual All-Ireland champions Tipperary well into the second half of their crucial knockout Munster semi-final tie, but ultimately they were blown out of it in the last quarter as their year ended abruptly. Still, Ring will have the cream of that side available to him too, such as Niall O’Leary, Matthew Bradley and Jack O’Connor, and they will certainly bolster the talented 2015 and 2017 minor crops.

Denis Ring will certainly have plenty of options then, but arguably his biggest decisions will be around where to position some of his key players.

For instance, Chris O’Leary lined out at midfield at minor level two years ago, but he would be regarded as a sub half-back on the senior panel. In the U21 championship this year new Cork manager John Meyler played him at wing-forward – a role that clearly did not suit the Valley Rovers man at this level, though he has done well there for his club. 

That would have to be sorted for starters.

Similarly, a decision has to be made early on whether Declan Dalton’s future lies in goals or on the 40. His display against Waterford in the U21 Munster semi-final this year was pure Roy of the Rovers stuff and provided enough evidence to suggest that he should be coached to play in the forward line in 2018. Again this will be up to Ring and Meyler to decide, and sooner rather than later.

The loss of Brian Turnbull to a cruciate ligament injury is a blow straight away, although with luck he may have returned by the time the championship throws in, although with corner-forwards of the calibre of Jack O’Connor and Evan Sheehan, Cork will not be short in this sector.

The following is an example of the kind of 15 that Cork could potentially field next summer.

Declan Dalton; John Cashman, David Griffin, Sean O’Leary Hayes; Billy Hennessy, Chris O’Leary, Niall O’Leary; Mark Coleman, Darragh Fitzgibbon; Robbie O’Flynn, Michael O’Halloran, Shane Kingston; Evan Sheehan, Tim O’Mahony, Jack O’Connor. 

Obviously, it seems a tad ridiculous suggesting a team this far out, but the point of the exercise is to show that it will be around the 2015 minors that this team gets built around. Ten of the above name side featured in that loss to Limerick in the Gaelic Grounds in ’15, while Shane Kingston would have also been there only for his unfortunate injury.

They won’t all make it, and you would hope that some more of this year’s minors might come into the equation. They are already making strides in the world of senior hurling, with Ger Mellerick being a prime example in the manner in which he played such a crucial part in Imokilly’s county championship triumph.

The final makeup of this side will certainly be an interesting mystery that reveals itself over the course of the next six or seven months, that is for sure.