Beara pull out of Cork Premier SFC a day before Duhallow clash

Beara have pulled out of this year’s McCarthy Insurance Group Cork Premier SFC Divisional/Colleges section.

They were due to face Duhallow on Thursday evening in their opening round game in Ballingeary, but the Beara GAA Board informed the Cork County Board on Wednesday afternoon that they didn’t have enough playing numbers.

Beara were confident of entering a team up until Wednesday morning, but two withdrawals left them with only 14 players. It’s now a third campaign on the bounce that the team in red and white won’t enter into the Cork Premier SFC.

Their absence from the 2023 and 2024 championships and now 2025 championship is a big cause for concern.

Beara have won the top-flight football championship on Leeside on six occasions, with the last one coming back in 1997. Beara also achieved a Munster championship crown once which was in 1968.

Beara’s withdrawal follows that of Avondhu last week meaning that both of the unseeded section games, Avondhu v Carbery and Beara v Duhallow, will now not take place.

Carbery and Duhallow, courtesy of their respective walkovers, now advance to the seeded section of the championship where they will face college side UCC and last year’s winners of this particular section Muskerry.

The future of the divisional/colleges section of the Premier SFC is now in the spotlight once again.

With the split season that is in place these days, it’s getting tougher and tougher for divisional and college teams to first of all get together and then try and have enough players to play. The Cork County League is nearing its conclusion with the full focus on that from a club point of view.

You can see both sides of the coin when it comes to the argument of divisional and college teams. It does give great exposure to certain players and also the experience of playing in the Premier competition on Leeside.

But, the honour of playing for your respective division and college has been diminished in recent years with the new GAA structure. Dual players most notably simply don’t have wiggle room now in their calendar and clubs are slow in releasing players in case of injury. Totally understandable.

What does the future hold for divisional and college teams? The Cork County Board have tried their utmost to get all divisions and colleges to participate in the championship this year. They held several meetings with the respective boards this year.

Back to the drawing board.