IT’S been another topsy-turvy few days in my little GAA world. The enjoyment of watching Carbery Rangers U14s score 2-19 on Friday night in Ballyvourney to secure a narrow victory against the locals was followed by the Cork hurlers reigniting their championship prospects with a superb win on Saturday evening. It was all downhill from there.
Two defeats for the seniors and juniors of Carbery Rangers in league games on Sunday preceded the biggest disappointment of all on Monday evening as Cork U17 footballers barely laid a glove on their Kerry counterparts in a Munster minor final rout.
Cork shipped a 15-point defeat, 2-18 to 1-6, in Páirc Uí Rinn in as comprehensive a beating as I can remember between the two teams at U17 or U18 level. A good number of us travelled from Ross for the game, having a vested interest in the fortunes of manager Haulie O’Sullivan, and exciting prospect in the forwards, Dylan O’Neill, while another Ranger Paudie Tobin was ruled out by injury. Suffice to say the spin home was not a happy one, as the increasingly familiar stinging taste of heavy defeat to our biggest rivals lingered in our mouths.
The primary focus of this week’s column is to look ahead to Saturday’s senior game against Clare, however we have to reflect on the game on Monday evening and Cork’s five defeats across senior, U20 and U17 to Kerry in Munster championships over the last three weeks. These results, and the results over the last few years, are symptomatic of a widening chasm between the footballers in Cork and Kerry. The curve is trending badly in the wrong direction from a Cork football perspective.
While Cork have long shipped the occasional heavy defeat to Kerry at senior level, up to recently we were almost unfailingly competitive with them at underage level. I stood beside my clubmate Kevin MacMahon at the game on Monday, himself holding two Munster minor titles and one All-Ireland from 1999 and 2000 and an U21 Munster medal from 2001. Despite having a strong team, we lost a Munster minor final in Killarney in 2003 by six points, before winning three U21 titles in a row, beating Kerry each year along the way. Another Munster title and the U21 All-Ireland that eluded me and a few others would be secured a year later under manager Tony Leahy in 2007. Cork were the dominant force at U21 from that initial unexpected 2004 win in Tralee up to the most recent All-Ireland U20 success in 2019, with 11 Munster titles and three All-Irelands won. Kerry though have now won four of the last five Munster titles, and with a degree of comfort on most occasions.
Cork's Dylan O'Neill gets the ball away as Kerry's Ruadhan Donovan looks on during the Electric Ireland Munster minor football final at Páirc Uí Rinn. (Photo: George Hatchell)
Kerry did hold sway more at minor level in the recent past, and since 2010 have claimed ten Munster titles and a number of All-Irelands under Peter Keane, in particular. Tipperary in 2011 and 2012 and Cork in 2021 and 2022, have been but mere brief disruptors. Cork did recover to win a surprise All-Ireland in 2019, however it will take a recovery of epic proportions for the current group to turn the season around in similar style given the manner of Monday’s defeat.
Of course, we’d like to believe Cork are much better than what they showed, however the gulf in skill and physicality between the teams on the night was apparent for all to see. The lack of belief in players wearing the red jerseys is worsening with each passing loss, and Kerry no longer seem to bear a semblance of doubt that they can put us to the sword at will. Generally, through the years, there has only been a kick or two of the ball between the counties at underage level, and we need to arrest the slide sooner rather than later as the persistent defeats are doing untold damage to football prospects in the county.
Now, let’s look at Cork’s All-Ireland SFC Group 3 opener against Clare this Saturday evening. Last week we looked at the Clare team from the 2021 league encounter against Cork and found only five survivors from the 21 players who saw action that day in the team that lined out against Kerry in the recent Munster SFC final. It has been more a case of evolution than revolution for the Cork team over the same period, and of the 22 who played that day, by my count 14 will still hope to be in the panel for Saturday evening.
Perhaps looking at the more recent history is a better barometer for the All-Ireland series opener, looking specifically at Clare’s victory over Cork at the same venue in Ennis in last year’s Munster quarter-final. However, again we find a vastly different Clare team to the one that took on Kerry and will likely be largely unchanged this weekend. Only seven players started both games, four of whom are in defence including goalkeeper Stephen Ryan, Cillian Brennan, Manus Doherty and match-winner last year Cillian Rouine will line out in front of him. Daniel Walsh has moved from wing back to wing forward, while Dermot Coughlan and Emmet McMahon impressed in the forwards against Kerry and held their places a little more than 12 months on.
Cork again have a far more settled look, and only the injured Luke Fahy and Killian O’Hanlon plus the departed Cian Kiely will not be involved from last year’s 19. The loss of Fahy is a blow, and likely opens the door for Rory Maguire to return to the half-back line. Another option would be to move Sean Powter back to wing back, with Stephen Sherlock and Ruairi Deane options to start in the forwards. Assuming he has proved his fitness, I expect Rory Maguire to be recalled.
Ian Maguire and Colm O’Callaghan will continue at midfield, and up front it’s possible that the aforementioned Powter is under the most pressure. Sean is a tremendously exciting runner when in full flow, but it hasn’t quite happened for him this year as yet. He might get one more chance from the start at the weekend, but he needs to perform if he does. Cathail O’Mahony has returned to training and, if fit enough to be an option, is a big boost to Cork’s attacking arsenal.
Cork do have a win in Clare in the bag this year already from the McGrath Cup game in early January, and while we don’t tend to put much too much store in those games, Clare did field 11 of the team that played Kerry on that day. Cork were convincing 12-point winners on that bad winter’s evening, and we can at least hope for better conditions in the middle of May.
Clare did give Kerry a good rattle, and do enjoy taking it to Cork, having a strong recent record against us, nonetheless I am backing the more settled and experienced Cork unit to get the Sam Maguire Cup campaign off to a winning start. It is imperative that Cork win this game, as it will likely secure at least third place and progress from the group, as absurd as it may sound that one win in three games is likely to be sufficient. The losers of this game will have to take down one of the Ulster giants of Tyrone or Donegal in order to have any chance to progress, and that’s not a prospect either team wants to face.
I expect the locals will put everything into this game as their home fixture against their biggest rivals in the group, however Cork need to be equally bull headed in their approach. It’s an overused cliché, but defeat is not an option for the Rebels on Saturday evening, and I do think we will have enough to win by four or four points. Defeat would cap a catastrophic few weeks for Cork football supporters, we dare not entertain the thought. Hopefully we can then relax and see if the hurlers can extend their season in Thurles on Sunday afternoon. That’s the beauty of sport, there is always another day to look forward to.
