Cork have their eye on the ball again as hurlers look forward with hope

IN his Irish Examiner column last Friday, Derek McGrath wrote about how Cork had learned from other winning templates and adapted them to suit their own county.

Cork have done so much right, from top to bottom, through the progressive commercialisation and investment projects in place, to the progress on and off the field, all of which has been balanced by awareness of the importance of the clubs and volunteers.

Cork clearly are thriving now, with everyone moving in the one direction, and with an overall vision and plan to match that drive. It has been led by smart minds and progressive thinking, good people who always had the belief that Cork should be doing better.

The rising tide is lifting boats at all levels now, but the wonder is that it took as long as it has for that tide to rise. There were a multitude of reasons why that didn’t happen; poor leadership, not enough joined-up thinking, no real vision, most of which was defined by an underlying attitude of smugness that decreed that Cork were Cork and everything would be alright.

It wasn’t. In the spring of 2010 the county board published a “ Strategic Vision and Action Plan” setting out targets and forecasts until the end of 2015. In a detailed 56-page document produced by a community of Cork GAA people, development squads commanded two lines on Page 19.

It read: “We will continue to have in place development squads at U16 and U17 encompassing quality coaching and player education modules.”

Two lines summed up the complacent and negligent attitude towards underage elite development. The message was clear – Cork would simply continue to prosper by the same means that had yielded results for decades.

Cork still had brilliant underage players, but skepticism and resistance to development squads meant Cork only dabbled in that process, which ultimately stunted and stymied the player pathway to the top. 

And the longer Cork abided by that attitude, the more they fell behind in elite player development.

At least some people had the mind and the foresight to arrest that attitude, and the decline it was leading to. Early in the last decade, Brian Cuthbert was appointed chairman of the Development Squads Committee. It was a key moment because Cuthbert had a vision for the role and an understanding of where Cork needed to go.

Dr Liam Hennessy, an exercise physiologist with a broad range of international experience in sports from rugby to professional soccer to Olympic disciplines to golf, was commissioned to conduct a review of how Cork ran its development squads.

IMPACT

The recommendations of Hennessy’s report were adopted in 2013 and immediately acted upon. The plan was immersed in best practise, at all levels. Before he took over as the board’s coaching officer in 2017, Kevin O’Donovan was involved in rolling out the changes.

It naturally took time to take off. In the early part of the process, Cork put more emphasis on results than development. They were trying to make things better by justifying the hard work through success at underage tournaments.

Some of those involved in the coaching back then will admit now that they were nearly trying too hard. Over the mid-term break at the end of October 2013, the Cork U15, U16, and U17 development squads spent five days in CIT, from 10am to 4pm, in a kind of mini-training camp.

Those players were excused from club training and matches. Over that Christmas, the same groups spent three days focusing on more than just hurling coaching — conditioning, tactical awareness and flexibility, speed training. It was almost overkill.

Cork were just dealing with the climate change, but, gradually, the hard winter was turning to a brighter spring. Once the results arrived, the focus changed more towards development.

Cork didn’t need to just pick two squads anymore to send to the Tony Forristal competition (All-Ireland U14). They were able to play their own regional U14 tournament with eight teams. 

Cork could afford to send two evenly balanced teams to the Arrabawn tournament at U15 level, when no other county was. And they were still able to win it, which half of this year’s minor team were part of in 2019, with the second team – Corcaigh – winning the plate competition.

A lot of people have done great work but Ronan Dwane, county board coaching officer between 2018-20, deserves special mention for spearheading the renaissance. A Cork minor selector in 2010 and 2011, Dwane was involved in development squads in 2012 before the focus changed in 2013. He had seen both sides and knew full well which side had to be driven to a totally new standard.

Dwane had the foresight, smarts, and absolute love of Cork hurling, but he also put as much emphasis on football development in order to try and change the culture so that young players could develop and prosper in a high-performance environment across the board.

Similar to O’Donovan before him (who got Dwane to take over the coaching officer role when O’Donovan departed), a huge part of Dwane’s brief was to find the best available coaches for each of the squads. The programme was so well established by that stage that the people Dwane approached knew they would be immersing themselves in a system defined by best practise.

As the system improved, so did the players and the teams they featured on. Cork began sweeping the boards at the underage tournaments. 

The quality and confidence were evident. Something special was building.

And successive All-Ireland U20 titles and a first All-Ireland minor title in 20 years have been the ultimate endorsement of what Cork are capable of delivering in the future.