WITH a week off from club action, it was the chance for the divisions and UCC to show their wares regarding their potential to compete with the top clubs in the county.
In the big ball game, it was down to three – Duhallow, who qualified from the round-robin unseeded section in June, and the seeded duo of Carbery and UCC. Duhallow were drawn against Carbery in a semi-final with the winners to play UCC in the Tadgh Crowley Cup final. The clash of Carbery and Duhallow took place in Páirc Uí Rinn with Duhallow reversing last year’s final defeat to the West Cork men by the narrowest of margins, winning 0-15 to 0-14 to qualify for Sunday’s final.
The divisional duo were deadlocked at 0-14 apiece deep into injury time when Duhallow’s Conor O’Callaghan launched a missile from outside the 45 that dropped over Carbery goalkeeper Mike Casey’s crossbar. Everyone thought that score would herald the final whistle, but referee Cormac Dineen signalled there would be time for one more play. Bantry Blues’ Casey picked out St Oliver Plunkett’s Padraig Healy with a superb kick-out underneath the stand. Healy took off down the side-line and parted to Brian O’Driscoll off his shoulder but with the Duhallow defence converging the Tadhg MacCarthaigh man’s final effort flew high and wide. How ironic it was that it was also a one-point game last year, only the other way round when Gabriel Rangers’ James O’Regan kicked the Carbery winner at the death.
Carbery went into this game as favourites, the main reason being that Duhallow had lost their Kanturk players because of their county premier intermediate championship success last year. However, the footballing gods conspired to even the scale in the previous weekend's club action when Carbery’s Ruairi Deane, Damien Gore, Sean Daly and Olan O’Donovan all picked up injuries in action for their clubs. Add other injury victims, Dylan Scannell and Brian Everard, to that list and it tested the strength of Tim Buckley’s panel to its limit. Duhallow were forced to start without former Cork senior Kevin Crowley for similar reasons.
The quality of the game was a testament to the players involved as preparation at divisional level is punctuated by club activity at this time of the year. Carbery boss Tim Buckley and Ger O’Sullivan, the Duhallow manager, were no doubt dreading the Monday after round two of the club championship in the hope that their players would come through unscathed. Lady Luck didn’t smile kindly on Carbery.
This game hinged on a pair of black cards either side of half time. Sean Ryan picked one up four minutes before the break as the sides went in with Carbery leading 0-9 to 0-6. Duhallow won that ten-minute period by 0-4 to nil. The evergreen Donnacha O’Connor then saw black, but Duhallow seemed to cope better, limiting the damage to one point each. Into injury time and Duhallow looked like they had winning daylight when leading by two points but the character of this Carbery squad is unquestioned as they fought back to level with two well-worked scores from Gabriels’ men James O’Regan and Ger O’Callaghan prior to O’Callaghan’s winning score.
Duhallow carried the momentum of three games in the round-robin series and a semi-final victory into Sunday's Tadgh Crowley Cup final in Páirc Uí Rinn and came away with a comfortable victory over UCC, 2-14 to 0-14. Mikey McAuliffe returned to form with both goals while Boherbue man Jerry O’Sullivan, who came off the bench against Carbery to score three points, started on this occasion and again got two from play. Luke Murphy, who had been wing forward against Carbery, moved to the corner and returned four points from play. My point being that over the five games, just as Carbery did last year, Duhallow manager Jer O’Sullivan is getting closer to his best team. On the other hand, it was UCC’s first outing.
The team that comes through the round-robin section carries all the momentum under the present system – and momentum is key to divisional success. It is a disadvantage to be seeded by the nature of divisional football under the system as it stands. Training sessions are few and far between, so you are relying on competitive games to get players together. Carbery and UCC had only one bite at the cherry, and they were out. There is surely room for improvement on the county board’s part here.
One suggestion might be that the qualifier from the unseeded series and the two seeded teams play a mini round-robin, guaranteeing every team two games with the team finishing top going through to the quarter-finals of the Premier SFC. Young players like Dan Twomey, Olan O’Donovan, Ryan O’Donovan, Olan Corcoran and Oisin O’Sullivan – and that’s only on the Carbery side – don’t deserve to be out of the championship after one game.
The whole point of divisional football is that every player in the county gets a chance to play and show their capabilities at the top grade. The players mentioned above are playing in the sixth grade at club level of football in Cork but have all worn the red underage. With so many grades in the county and with the number of players from lower grade clubs playing on U17 and U20 Cork teams, divisional football was never as important to the further progression of Cork football at the top level as it is now.
