Revamped championship offers divisions a route back into Cork Premier Senior football

The revamp of the Cork Premier Senior Football Championship’s Divisions/Colleges section ahead of the 2026 season is designed to combat a worrying drift, and, crucially, to give divisions that have struggled to field in recent years a realistic route back.

It had reached an uncomfortable point last season.

Three divisions with nine county senior football titles between them never made it to the starting line.

Imokilly made the decision not to field early in the year, Avondhu pulled out prior to the beginning of last year’s championship in May, and Beara went on to withdraw a month after in June.

At the time, Beara GAA secretary Joseph Blake was clear on where the problem lay, and what needed to change.

“Once you go into May and June time, you have the Junior B football championship, county league fixtures and also players will go away on holidays,” he said, last year to The Echo. “We could see at the start of the year that June time was going to be problematic for Beara.” 

That view has now been acted upon, with earlier rounds shifted into April, a move that has drawn strong support across the divisions.

Avondhu chairperson John Courtney believes the change offers far more than a short-term fix.

“It's ideal,” Courtney begins. “It's not working for just one division, it's working for a lot of the divisions, because it's a great chance to kickstart it again.

“You’re going to get a couple of matches in April and you'll come out of that, you'll go on to tier 2, hopefully. The county board – I was at the meeting – something had to be done. This year, I think it's a very good idea, personally.” 

Since the change to a round-robin format from knockout, divisions haven’t just found it difficult to compete in the Cork championships, as mentioned, fielding has been a huge problem.

“The clubs we lost, from our good times [played a part],” says Courtney. “Losing Kilshannig, Fermoy, Mallow, Clyda Rovers, that was huge.

“But then we have, Mitchelstown, Glanworth, Kildorrery, Buttevant, Killuvallen, Liscarroll/Churchtown Gaels who’ve come on, Charleville have come on.

It's just we need to get the players to buy in, we need to get the clubs to buy in and release the players.

“I remember in my time, training for Avondhu and not making the panel,” he explains. “That's going back now to the mid-80s, but there was a time in Avondhu when there was a push made to try and have two Avondhu teams, because you had Glanworth, Fermoy, Grange, Mitchelstown, Kildorrery, they were all playing intermediate football and all playing competitively.” 

HELPFUL

For newly-appointed Imokilly manager John O’Connor, the calendar change has altered what’s possible.

“It's very helpful now because with the Championship on in April, there’re no matches really in January and February, so it gives us a free run to organise a couple of sessions and a couple of challenge matches,” O’Connor explains. “March then will be a bit of a challenge, when teams are playing club matches but we've spoken to a lot of club managers.

“We've been meeting with them. A few months back we invited a lot of club managers in and we set out our stall, what our schedule will be and we said there will be a good working relationship there.” Central to that approach, he stresses, is trust.

If any of them are carrying injuries, they won't be forced to train with us.

“They'll be managing loads and trying to look after players' wellbeing, to make sure they're all fit and ready for club and division.” Last year’s championship saw just three divisional sides compete, Duhallow, Carbery and Muskerry, joined by UCC.

With those four given a pass to the seeded section of the 2026 championship which will commence in June, it gives those who have struggled to field in the past few seasons to compete with one another earlier in the year.

The winner of the unseeded section will join the other three in June.

“The fact we'll have the unseeded group playing first, we'll have that played long before clubs are getting ready for championship themselves.

“You can talk about club managers not buying into it, but divisional managers have a responsibility to look after club players as well and not interfere with their season,” O’Connor remarks. “There has to be an openness between all sides.

“They need to know when we're training, and when they're training. We won’t be getting fellas out every night of the week.

“If everyone works together, it can work. In the case of a player coming to me and saying they’ve had a heavy club match yesterday with a few weeks of training, we're not going to force them to do anything that could risk an injury.

“If everyone works together and does the right thing, it can work.”