BY JOHNNY CAROLAN
CORK County Board secretary Kevin O’Donovan hopes that clubs will engage with a two-meeting process over the coming weeks in the search for a consensus on what age the minor grade should be.
Until 2017, minor was U18 but that was changed to U17, with the provisio that minor players could not line out for their clubs at adult level. This was primarily done so as to ensure the easier running of adult and juvenile competitions separately, but there remains a strong appetite for a return to the higher age.
While O’Donovan can see the merits in that, he feels the only way that such a move could happen would be if the separation of minor and adult competitions remained. That will ultimately be the crux of discussion at two club meetings, to be held at Páirc Uí Chaoimh on October 11th and October 25th.
At the first, clubs will be presented with what the options are for the future – essentially, U18 would mean the next highest grade would be U21, with U17 tied to U20 – and then asked to have meetings among themselves before returning a fortnight later in a bid to have a united Cork voice seeking a workable solution.
O’Donovan feels that it is the most important topic currently up for discussion in Cork, but cautioned clubs that hopes of a return to the old way are likely to be dashed.
‘Whatever you want your minor at, I don’t think Croke Park are going to allow any scenario where you get that minor grade without decoupling,’ he said.
‘I think 99.9 percent of people in this country want minor at club level to be at U18. The ‘but’ is coming, though. Are people then willing to play adult without your U18s? Then it is not 99.9 percent. It is all grand to say we want minor at U18, but are you willing to make the necessary sacrifice to get U18.
‘It is absolutely essential that the clubs meet in between the two county board meetings because we want to hear right from the utter grassroots what is the Cork position. We won’t be voting the second night, but we hope to reach a consensus on how the Cork clubs feel.
‘I don’t think there is a more urgent or important issue facing us at the moment.’
