Cork football: Where has it all gone wrong in the league?
The Cork senior team line up against Cavan during the Allianz NFL Division 2 game at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Picture: Eddie O'Hare
CORK were relegated to Division 3 back in 2019 you could see it coming.
However, if Cork end up dropping back to the third tier in 2024 we can make no such claims. I actually advised a few non-Corkonians that the 5/1 odds on offer in 2019 for relegation to occur was decent value. And they profited accordingly.
At the start of this league campaign, we stated Cork’s goal had to be to get back up to Division 1 to test themselves regularly against the Kerrys, Dublins and Derrys of this world. A month ago this seemed a realistic goal. The word certainly was not on the agenda this time.
Last year Cork had reached the All-Ireland quarter-finals, pushing Kerry and Derry close in the championship, and they had finished fourth in the Division 2 table. The feeling was that John Cleary’s side were on the up. Sure, they were far from championship contenders, but they seemed to be heading in the right direction. That was until the opening three rounds of the league have seemingly de-railed those assumptions.
There are caveats. There are injuries, and some of the players who have togged out in the opening rounds are not long back from lengthy lay-offs themselves, which has impacted performance levels.
Castlehaven reaching the All-Ireland club semi-final was great, but ironically his own club's run to provincial glory may have been a thorn in John Cleary’s side, as Rory Maguire and Brian Hurley never got a chance to get a break before returning to the Cork fold.
Maguire was nominated for an All-Star last year in the pivotal number six jersey, but this campaign has seen him look extremely exposed as Kevin Walsh’s defensive structure seems to have unravelled.
Tallies of 1-20, 2-9 and 0-17 have been conceded against Donegal, Louth and Cavan, which are well above their average concession rates for last year’s league campaign. There was the awful opening round game to Meath, where they conceded 3-14, but after that, only the promoted Dublin and Derry hit those kind of numbers against Cork.
Last season Cork scored only 0-10 in their Round 6 defeat to Louth, but in all other games they either matched or exceeded the highest points total that they have achieved so far in this campaign.
Without getting too stuck into the stats the bottom line is that Cork are conceding more than they did last year, while not scoring as much down the other end. That’s a simple recipe for disaster.
The midfield partnership of Colm O’Callaghan and Ian Maguire worked a treat in 2023 but is perhaps struggling to reach the same heights this year. The much-maligned kick-out strategy of overloading the left touchline and kicking long to the pair in the hope that one of them will snaffle possession gets more criticism with every passing defeat. The approach should certainly be an option when going long, but it shouldn’t be the only one.
The Cork forward line is not firing despite it appearing, when winning the McGrath Cup a month ago, that there were numerous attacking options available. The issue seems to be the difficulty in getting the balance right in terms of dropping natural finishers into the side without unbalancing the side.
This is something that needs to be figured out quickly.
The one thing that might save Cork’s skin is that they have yet to play three of the four sides that are directly above them in the Division 2 table. Quite simply they must beat Kildare, Meath and Fermanagh if they wish to save their Division 2 status and possibly avoid the drop to the Tailteann Cup. Two of those ties are on the road so that will not be an easy task, with just Kildare travelling to Leeside.
They do host Armagh in the last round and might get a bit of luck if Armagh have already guaranteed themselves a top-two spot.
Three wins out of four should do it, but right now you would be slow to back Cork to achieve that goal.
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