Christy O'Connor: Cork football needs radical change and dangerous ideas to become a force again

At a Cork Chamber business breakfast at Páirc Uí Chaoimh in late March, Kevin O’Donovan, Cork GAA CEO, quoted ‘The Catcher in the Rye’, ‘The Old Man and the Sea’, and ‘Field of Dreams’ in his address to the audience.

O’Donovan has always been a very smart, articulate, intelligent and engaging character so he borrowed from a wide spectrum of words and works of JD Salinger, Ernest Hemingway, WP Kinsella and Phil Alden Robinson to convey his message of where Cork GAA currently finds itself, and where it needs to go to arrive at a better place.

The topics O’Donovan raised were deep and broad, ranging from commercial and financial issues to performances on the field, coaching, schools, immigrant culture, sustainability, inclusion and integration.

"Cork GAA is something we want to get every day and shake it," said O’Donovan at that event. “Catch it and shake it, because that's how we can respect our forebears, to just keep everyday pushing the dial as far as we can."

O’Donovan didn’t hold back when it came to stating how bold and brave Cork needed to be in coming up with ideas and plans in order to keep pushing that dial as far and wide as possible.

When it came to a discussion on football, O’Donovan felt he had a licence to go to the extremes given how far the game had fallen in the county, especially after another disappointing league campaign, which meant that Cork are now outside the top tier for a decade.

“It needs some dangerous ideas,” said O’Donovan at that business breakfast. “Should the Cork footballers decouple themselves a little bit from Cork hurling? Should Cork wear a different football jersey? Should they play their home games in Páirc Uí Rinn?

“Should Cork move to Leinster as a province? Should we ask? That's not a joke - an officer rang me (about it) last week. It's a new idea. 

Should we go to Leinster for more competitive games?"

Of all the points O’Donovan raised, all are legitimate questions to ask, even if the one on Cork football going to Leinster seemed too outlandish and off the scale to even entertain. Or was it?

That is possibly the most pertinent question of all in trying to address the bigger issues related to Cork football; Cork’s elite underage footballers are not getting enough games; they’re not playing enough football. Would they not get more in Leinster?

Cork would if they were there. In this year’s Leinster minor football championship for example, the eventual winners Offaly were beaten by Dublin and Louth in their first two games in the group by margins of nine points.

A narrow three-point win against Laois in their last game saved Offaly from going out of the championship before a run of four successive games saw them crowned champions, defeating Louth in the final.

WAIT

Offaly played seven games against six different teams whereas the Cork minors played three games against two different sides – Kerry (twice) and Tipperary. Offaly began their campaign on March 29 while Cork didn’t kick a ball in championship until May 5.

At the recent three-hour meeting of Cork GAA’s county committee, which was devoted in its entirety to all aspects of Cork football, the idea around Cork taking part in Leinster's U17 football league prior to competing in the Munster championship wasn’t discussed.

Cork’s underage football teams need more games but they won’t be making any decisions around how they can increase that volume of matches until they attend a meeting with the Munster Council on Tuesday week, July 22, to discuss the formats for the U17 and U20 championships with a view to introducing a more equitable round-robin format.

A lot of Cork’s struggles at underage have also been tied into how much Cork schools have struggled to make any impact at Munster colleges level in recent years. 

A Cork school hasn’t won the Corn Uí Mhuirí since 2011, while the last U17 Frewen Cup winners was back in 2016. In the intervening years, only three Cork schools have contested Corn Uí Mhuirí finals, with just two Cork appearances in Frewen finals. 

Furthermore, the last Cork winners of both competitions - Coláiste Chríost Rí – are now competing at Senior B level in the province.

Other strong pillars that supported and buttressed Cork football in the past have also collapsed. There was a time when the Cork Vocational schools team was a reliable feeder for Cork underage county teams but that source is no longer there because the competition no longer exists.

That was extremely damaging in the long run for Cork football, just as the dissolution of the Munster and All-Ireland Junior football championships also was for the county. When Cork won the 2010 All-Ireland, eight of that panel had learned their trade with the Cork Juniors, having won All-Ireland Junior medals before they bagged that senior title.

NARROW

The development squads pave the pathway now for players from smaller clubs but that pathway is narrower again with so many of the divisional teams struggling.

It's only 28 years since Beara were county football champions but the divisional team recently withdrew from the county senior championship. So did Avondhu, another former Cork county senior championship winning division.

The crammed calendar is another huge factor, but the county still needs to be more proactive around ensuring players – especially young players – get exposed to as much football as they possibly can.

It certainly is time for dangerous ideas around Cork football.