Portents good for Cork footballers after two opening wins

When Cork go to Glenisk O’Connor Park in Tullamore for Sunday’s Allianz FL Division 2 clash with Offaly (2pm), they will aim to bridge a six-year gap.

With wins over Cavan and Louth under their belts, John Cleary’s side are aiming to open a league campaign with three straight wins for the first time since 2020. However, even that stat comes with an asterisk, as it was the one-year sojourn in Division 3 following a second relegation in the space of four years.

For seasons spent in one of the top two divisions, 2014 in the top flight under Brian Cuthbert is the last time that Cork claimed the first six available points – they won their opening two games the following year and that record remained unmatched until a fortnight ago.

Last year, Cork were impressive as they beat Meath in the first outing and then led Down by ten points in their second game but fell to defeat.

While it’s easy to look at the final table and say that victory in Newry would have yielded promotion, it’s also misleading. What we can say is that Cork would have had four points from two games, with a home game against Westmeath to come – in a great position but it’s impossible to say that everything else would have played out exactly the same.

Something else we can do, though, is look at the Division 2 seasons in the time since Cork’s relegation from Division 1 a decade ago – and assess how the teams that won their first two matches went on to fare in the final denouement.

In 2017, Cork’s first season since relegation, their second match was a loss to a Kildare side that had beaten Meath – the Lilywhites would finish second with five wins and two defeats.

The following year, not a single team managed to win their opening two games – with so many evenly matched teams in the section, the result nobody ever predicts, a draw, tends to materialise fairly often. It was a similar story in the 2020 league, with nobody on four points after two rounds.

In between, Donegal bounced back from their relegation to start off with wins over Clare and Meath, the first part of a campaign that yielded five wins and an immediate return.

Due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2021 league was still into northern and southern section – and three teams won their first two matches. Mayo and Kildare both carried that form on to promotion, with Clare still making the semis despite defeat to Cork in their third match but Mayo were too strong in the least four.

Like buses, the same thing happened again in 2022. This time, Derry were the unlucky side as they opened with wins over Down and Offaly but finished third behind Galway and Roscommon – both the Connacht sides had been relegated but got straight back on the horse.

In the three years since, two teams have started with two wins and each pair – Derry and Dublin in 2023, Donegal and Armagh in 2024 and Roscommon and Monaghan last year – occupied the top two spots at the end.

Of that sextet, all but Derry were bouncing back after relegation. After Cork were relegated in 2016 along with Down, neither were promoted the following year – that has not happened since in the second tier with one or both teams making an immediate return.

What is perhaps interesting this year is that Cork and Meath are the front-runners on four points – Derry and Tyrone are the pair who were operating in Division 1 last year but they have each suffered one loss already, which is why Sunday is such a big opportunity.

If Cork were to win and Meath triumph at home to Louth on Saturday, next Sunday week’s meeting of the Rebels and the Royals at Páirc Uí Rinn would give the chance for one to record a fourth straight win.

There is a good share of football to be played before that and, as we have seen, two opening wins is no guarantee of anything – but it is a strong foundation.