Good, bad and the ugly of Cork hurling and football across 2025: Croke Park collapse still haunts fans

The year 2025 can now be officially consigned to the history books. It is one that Cork GAA supporters are probably happy to see the back of.

The footballers had a respectable year without ever really threatening to make a breakthrough. They rattled Kerry in Munster before losing the preliminary quarter-final to Dublin after giving them a bit of a scare, but it always felt like the team had a Steven Sherlock-shaped hole up front.

This was, of course, the first year of the new rules, with amendments to the game such as the two-pointer and having to play three up in the opposition half being tailormade for the Barr’s marksman.

He proved this to be the case once the club season kicked off, shooting the lights out to lead St Finbarr’s to their 11th county crown and to within seconds of a sixth Munster title too.

Sherlock is going to be back on John Cleary’s panel, which is an exciting prospect for supporters. Alongside Chris Óg Jones, he could form an extremely effective partnership up top.

Mark Cronin, with his trusty left peg, the experienced Brian Hurley, the returning Conor Corbett and quality sharpshooters David Buckley and Cathail O’Mahony mean the Rebels should not be short of scoring options. 

The real trick will be getting the balance right as the likes of Brian O’Driscoll and Sean McDonnell are clearly important in terms of work-rate in attack.

They kick off their league campaign on 25 January at home to Cavan, but will play four of their seven ties away from home, which automatically means the odds on promotion are lessened, and especially so given Tyrone and Derry have dropped to Division 2, but that has to be the aim for the first part of the year.

At underage level the Cork minor and U20 teams looked off the pace, suffering heavy defeats to Kerry in the provincial championship.

Gone are the days when you would expect Cork underage teams to physically dominate. There are clearly talented players pulling on the geansáí but they seem behind their Kerry counterparts in areas such as strength and conditioning as well as game smarts. 

That will have to change. The glorious year of 2019, when Cork won All-Irelands at both minor and U20 level, seems a long time ago now.

HORRIBLE

Any recap of Cork’s hurling year comes with a huge elephant in the room.

A first league title since 1998. Munster champions after a titanic struggle with the great Limerick team. These were amongst the huge positives this year, but it is hard to look past the second half of the All-Ireland final and those horrible numbers, 3-14 to 0-2.

Those 35 minutes were a perfect storm. An initial Tipp surge and before Cork could regroup, a penalty and a red card. Game over in a matter of minutes. 

Great fun for the Tipp hurlers. For Cork, it was a nightmare and it's still hard to explain. 

The Munster Hurling League starts soon, with the league proper throwing in on 25 January at home to Waterford. Cork will be reminded of that All-Ireland final at regular intervals, whether they like it or not. The skin will have to be of the rhino variety.

At underage, the U20s ended up coming up short in the Munster semi-final to Clare, but they showed improvement in every game, after starting slowly in a draw against Clare and a defeat to Tipperary. They were very impressive in wins over Limerick and Waterford with Barry Walsh leading the attack. The Killeagh forward is still U20 and will certainly be a marked man.

The minors were superb in dominating the Munster championship from start to finish, winning all five games comfortably with a wonderful brand of attacking hurling.

They will have huge regrets over the All-Ireland semi-final loss to Clare. 

They had beaten the Bannermen easily in Munster, but seemed surprised by Clare's intensity and fell just short.

You would imagine that a number of those U17s will go straight into the U20 ranks in 2026. We will certainly be seeing a lot of that side in red again.