THIS season has been West Cork's most successful year on the football field since 2003 when a trio of local clubs – Castlehaven, Ilen Rovers and Carbery Rangers – swept the boards across all three of the top football grades.
This year, Castlehaven were crowned premier senior football champions, Newcestown were victorious over neighbours Dohenys in the senior A grade and Bantry Blues were runners-up for the second successive year at the premier intermediate grade.
Regarded by many as the home of football in Cork, times have been lean of late down here in the west.
Since the championships were revamped in 2020, Castlehaven are the first West Cork team to win the top grade, having been runners up in 2020 with Clonakilty also tasting the bitter pill of defeat in the final courtesy of the Barrs in ’21. In the last decade (2010-19), three titles came west – the Haven with two and Carbery Rangers in 2016, which was the last before Haven’s success this season. In the noughties, three senior titles were also won by local teams, courtesy of Carbery, Clonakilty and, again, the Haven.
Newcestown’s return to the top grade for 2024 means the count goes from three top premier senior teams to four next season plus the Carbery divisional side and Dohenys are not too far away from a return.
A question – will the number of top titles this decade increase? Prior to 2023 no West Cork team had competed in the senior A final since the championships were revamped. Having the luxury of two this past season guaranteed at least one title coming west. Prior to Bantry’s appearances in the last two finals at the premier intermediate grade, you have to go all the way back to 2010 to find the last West Cork county finalist at this grade when Newcestown defeated Clyda Rovers to secure their senior status. Not only is it hard to win county titles, we often don’t appreciate how hard it is to get to finals, not to mention back-to-back finals. Hat-tip here to Bantry Blues.
The successes of these local clubs raises the profile of Gaelic football in West Cork when competition for our talented young athletes is increasingly hot right now. Rugby has evolved so much in the last decade that the soft hands and good feet of a fella with a GAA background is proving to be a real recipe for success. Take Rosscarbery man John Hodnett and Dunmanway trailblazer Darren Sweetnam as examples, not to mind the rest of the West Cork mafia as they are known in Munster circles, the Coombes, the Wycherleys and Jack Crowley. We have also seen the number of young soccer players linked up with Cork City increase, and we can all appreciate how popular soccer is, even in these lean times for the national team. Throw in the successes of the Skibbereen rowers on the Olympic and world stages, as well as the rise of athletics locally, and you get an appreciation of the boundless opportunities available to sports-mad youngsters in West Cork.
Newcestown captain Luke Meade with the cup after the Cork SAFC win.
This is why success at club level is so important and why success at inter-county level is even more important. We want our impressionable ten-year-olds to be looking at the likes of the David Buckleys, Fionn Herlihys and Brian Hurleys and saying to themselves “I want to be like him”. The next generation of top-level performers have more opportunities than ever before to go in different directions when once the GAA had it all to ourselves here in the west.
We are lucky that West Cork is well represented at the very top level of Cork football. John Cleary is the senior manager, Brian Hurley is captain and one fifth of the starting team that lost out to Derry in the All-Ireland quarter final this year was West Cork-based. The bigger the stage those boys get to play on, the better the chance that the next generation will follow suit and want to better them. A return to Division 1 and an appearance in at least an All-Ireland semi-final would be a great help.
The change of age grade from 17 years old back to 18 will also help to hold those lads that had gone out of U17 and were in limbo. In most cases, probably not physically developed enough to go straight into adult football, they are either leaving our game or finding another sport to quell their competitive instincts. Once they go and are getting what they want from another sport – i.e., competitive, regular games – it is difficult to get them back.
The divisional board’s decision to run U21 championships, which really kicked into life this past weekend, is also a positive step. Once regarded as the most important developmental grade, for some reason it was decided that it should be shelved. Granted, it’s a difficult time of the year to play it as weather conditions are a major imposition but there was a time that if you had a successful U21 side it was the stepping stone for future adult success. Clubs had them at the age when they were making decisions for themselves and if the GAA bug took hold at that age more often than not it continued into adult football.
The GAA has a major fight on its hands to attract and hold the top young talents. The profile of the game generated by local club and inter-county success is and has always been a major influence on our young people. Continued hard work needed.
