2021 Cork hurling season review: Despite senior loss future is positive

AT the beginning of October 2019, Cork had gone 18 years without an All-Ireland minor title and U21 since victory at U21 level.

That summer, the senior side had been comfortably beaten by Kilkenny in the All-Ireland quarter-finals and there was a general sense of listlessness and not knowing if and when the tide would turn.

By coincidence, there were managerial vacancies at senior, U21 and minor level for the coming season and this opportunity was used to present a new approach. Kieran Kingston, previously in charge of the seniors in 2016 and 2017, was to return to that job, while Pat Ryan was appointed as U20 manager and Dónal Óg Cusack came into the minor role. In addition, as part of a joined-up approach to keep coaches with the development squads they brought through, Noel Furlong was confirmed as U16 manager for 2020, then assuming the minor job for 2021.

It was ambitious, but it was something that then-county chairperson Tracey Kennedy felt could prove extremely worthwhile.

“As I indicated at the outset, we did not want to rush into any decisions,” she said, “and the length of the process is indicative both of the extent of our consultation and the number of excellent people who were willing to talk to us about Cork hurling.

I truly believe that we now have a structure in place which will ensure that we can always secure the best people to lead Cork teams, on a clear pathway for both coaches and players, from underage all the way through to senior.”

Nobody knew the fragmented 2020 campaign that lay ahead, with the senior team’s preparation for the winter championship affected by the club competitions running into October, while the minor side lost out to Limerick in their Munster semi-final. The U16s didn’t even get to play, but the U20 side did claim provincial glory the night before Christmas Eve.

Ultimately, the 2020 championship would be won in July of this year, Pat Ryan’s side beating Dublin in Nowlan Park to remove one of the monkeys from the county’s hurling back.

Such was the compacted nature of things that the ‘new’ U20 side were beginning their campaign away to Tipperary just a week and a half later. At half-time in Thurles that evening, it looked as if it was a case of ‘after the Lord Mayor’s Show’, Cork trailing by six points, but a spirited second-half revival set them on their way.

That journey ended last Wednesday with All-Ireland final victory over Galway an emulation of the feat of back-to-back titles of 1997 and 1998 and Ryan was able to reflect on how one victory paved the way for the other.

“It was easy to pick up the momentum when we won the first All-Ireland,” he said.

“That was the key. If we’d lost that, there was not a hope that we’d have beaten Tipperary. That was fantastic and credit to the management team with me – there was not an hour or a day that anyone complained.

“We were doing a lot of work and putting a lot of effort into it. I thought our coaching team, led by Donal O’Mahony and Brendan [Coleman] and Wayne [Sherlock] and Deccie Fitzgerald did a fantastic job in getting everybody ready in the way we wanted to play and what the lads were expected to give us.”

That U20 decider was the first of three in the space of five days. We all know that, while the minors also saw off their Galway counterparts in Thurles, the seniors’ first final appearance in eight years ended in defeat to Limerick.

Nevertheless, the year represented clear progress and, if one were being brutal about it and having to pick two to win for the overall good of Cork hurling, the underage titles are arguably more necessary to lay that groundwork to provide the successful pathway.

After the minor victory, Furlong paid tribute to the efforts that had gone in to moulding the first All-Ireland-winning Cork side since 2001.

“They didn’t get an U16 year but no county got an U16 year,” he said. “We scoured the county at U15 level and we were able to go to all the club games when it was back in action last year.

"We knew exactly what players were out there and what players fitted the criteria that we were looking for.

They’re all in regional groups at U14 and U15 and then at U16 it gets a bit narrower and at U17 it gets a bit narrower again.

“Ger O’Regan, who’s a selector here, would have started at U14 with this group, when they won the Tony Forristal. The rest of the management got involved at U15 level and since then we’ve put in a huge amount of work with these lads. You can see the rewards of that now.” 

Ultimately, those rewards will count for little if there’s no follow-through, but Furlong is confident that the successful minors can progress.

“What needs to happen is very clear,” he said.

“There are great structures in Cork and you can see that, especially with the employment of Aidan O’Connell.

“They’re U17 now, they’ll have Harty Cup and so forth to keep them going to U19, they’ve Pat Ryan and the lads at U20 level.

“So there’s an exceptional pathway there, where they’re going to be getting high-level, regular, meaningful games.

“Kevin O’Donovan, the CEO, that was the one thing I used to always hear him say – regular, meaningful games. There’s no shortage of high-quality environments that these players can go in, which will only help their development going from 17 to 19 to 20 and so forth.” 

And it is this bedrock of emerging talent which serves to soften the blow of the 16-point loss to Limerick on Sunday. Certainly, it was a poor Cork performance but it came against a majestic Limerick side. And it was telling that, in the midst of his own disappointment, Kieran Kingston first congratulated Limerick and also acknowledged the work that had gone into getting Cork to a final.

“Any time you lose an All-Ireland final, it’s a massive, massive disappointment,” he said. “The dressing-room, everybody’s gutted, a huge, huge amount of effort went into getting us here.

“But I have to compliment and thank the backroom staff and the players. Since we got back together in April – with a lot of changes to the panel, some guys hadn’t met each other – they’ve worked extremely hard since then. They’d worked on their own prior to that.

They’ve worked with us the last four months or so, trying to implement a new way of playing, buying into that, working on it, and they’ve been fantastic.

“Okay, today, four months wasn’t as good as four years in the way a team plays, we saw that. But, look, these lads have a big future. 

"They’re really, really hungry, they want to play for Cork, want to play for the jersey, but today we were just out-gunned, out-everything.” 

Time is the key – as the last decade and a half has shown, there is no magic cure for everything. But the county is on the right track.