TAKING a job in the media as a former player can be fraught with danger, as the potential to upset and annoy people is always there, and when it comes to Cork football it’s often people I know and would consider myself friendly with. It would be lovely to sit here and be able to write positive words about the fortunes of Gaelic football in our county, but the unfortunate reality is that I have nothing good to say after the shambolic display against Roscommon on Saturday night.
This was the kind of night that does nothing to help the cause of the big ball game in the biggest county in Ireland. The stage was set for this Cork team last weekend, the evening was dry and mild, somewhere around half of the 23,000 who attended the hurling against Kilkenny hung on to see what all the fuss over Gaelic football in 2025 was about. What followed was a spectacular failure from the Cork team to do so.
By half-time of a rather poor Division 2 encounter, another few thousand had seen enough and decided to spend the rest of their Saturday evening elsewhere, and come the end of the game there were but a few hardy souls left. Put it this way, I had little trouble with traffic on my spin home. Thank goodness for small mercies, because my mood was foul enough after what I had seen just prior: a 14-point home loss against Roscommon, 2-21 to 0-13. If Louth in 2024 was the low bar for John Cleary’s term as Cork manager, it now has competition from this abysmal effort against the visitors from Connacht.
The opening stages saw Cork start the stronger, without setting the world alight, moving into an early lead mainly courtesy of frees from Mark Cronin. Cathail O’Mahony was the only other scorer for Cork in a first half that got continually worse from a Cork perspective as the game wore on. Roscommon dropped to the arc and formed a defensive zone that Cork struggled badly to break down. Cork’s offensive football when faced with a solid low block is slow, predictable and devoid of creativity, imagination or spontaneity. On the few occasions that Cork breached the Roscommon rearguard, the finishing was wasteful.
Paul Walsh coughed up another goal chance in the early stages and O’Mahony had wides that you’d expect a player of his quality to nail. To give O’Mahony his credit, he showed well for the ball and had the beating of his man, on a night when others barely showed at all. At one point in the first half, he made a great run into space and was open for an easy kick-pass in front of goal, but the Cork obsession with having our heads down and running with the ball meant the pass was never going to come.
Regular readers will know I’m not a fan of the attacking strategy that Cork have employed in recent seasons for slower build ups, all but emptying the middle channels, lining up on the sidelines and blindly running to the wings to exchange a few handpasses in the hope space will open up for a shot. The tactic is mildly more effective against the reduced numbers in defence, but in truth, apart from one Mark Cronin two-pointer, Roscommon had little trouble in repelling what Cork threw at them.
Cork’s use of the ‘fly goalkeeper’ leaves much to be desired also. While other teams draw opposition defences out and use the keeper to break lines or to hold possession when leading a game, Cork are so slow and laboured that when Patrick Doyle receives the ball he is virtually static and provides very little additional threat. Roscommon showed far more variety, ingenuity and skill in their approach work, creating chances to build their lead and then using their extra man to hold possession at times also.
After their slow start, Roscommon recovered to lead by four at the half-time break. The many patrons who made for the exit would have felt justified given Cork’s performance deteriorated almost into farce in the second half. Cork were hanging on to Roscommon coat-tails until mid-way through the second half when an inability to clear a loose ball in defence led to a panicked effort at a tackle to gift Roscommon a penalty. The influential Enda Smith calmly beat Doyle from the spot. A comically bad second goal was to follow for Roscommon when a Rory Maguire backpass went astray, and with Patrick Doyle unable to play the ball under the new rules, the impressive Ben O’Carroll nipped in and put the outcome beyond doubt.
Cork manager John Cleary watching the action at Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Saturday. (Photo: George Hatchell)
Sean Powter and Brian O’Driscoll both struck the crossbar late on when Roscommon were already thinking about the bus trip home, a journey that would have seemed much shorter after an easy evening’s work. The Rossies are now level with Meath and Monaghan on eight points in the battle for promotion, while Cork will face Louth next needing a win to alleviate relegation concerns. Westmeath look resigned to their fate with no points, although they have been somewhat unlucky in some very tight games. Down are currently second from bottom with a single win with Cork and our next opponents locked together on four points. Final day opponents Cavan hold the middle of the table on six points.
The Cork football squad departs this week for four days of warm weather training in Portugal, hoping for a similar bounce in form that followed last year’s equivalent when Cork got seven points from a possible eight in the final four games to ease similar relegation and Tailteann Cup concerns. Kevin Walsh, who does not travel down for midweek training, now gets his hands on the team for several uninterrupted days of work, and he must show there’s more to this Cork team than the overload kick-out and sideline attacking obsession; Cork need to see some new ideas to arrest the slide. More of the same just won’t do.
The rest of the management group also needs to take ownership of what is happening. They are all Cork football die-hards, the standards are way below where they should be right now and cannot be accepted. I know from experience that it’s not easy, but that is irrelevant, they have jobs to do and what is currently being done is just not good enough. I’m certainly not absolving the players from blame, and they need to front up now as well, but responsibility lies with the boss and his lieutenants. Spring is in the air, Cork badly need to put some pep into their step in the Algarve or demotion to Division 3 and missing out on Sam Maguire football this year becomes a real possibility.
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Week five of the national football leagues and the new rules and enhancements continue to dominate headlines and discussions in the media and everywhere else beyond too. Cork clubs got their first experiences of the new ball game as the leagues commenced with some high scores abounding, and I expect John Cleary would have noted the 15 points kicked by Steven Sherlock for the Barrs against Cill na Martra. Failure to keep the Togher sharpshooter involved for 2025 is another black mark against the group, as he is the most consistent long-range kicker in the county.
While there is much positivity about the changes, despite trepidation about the volume of changes in such a short space of time, there is also significant backlash amongst an increasingly vocal minority of inter-county managers in particular. There are some valid criticisms and we hope to see some amendments, particularly around the extra attacker joining to give an unfair advantage against the out-manned defensive team, while I am also increasingly becoming convinced that the 40-metre arc is too close for two-pointers and should be increased to 45 metres.
Nonetheless, the words of Meath boss Robbie Brennan, who decried the new game as not resembling Gaelic football at all, grabbed the headlines. Brennan suggested that we now had a game that mixed elements of basketball, rugby and soccer but not Gaelic football. I have some news for the Meath manager, it was ever thus. Anyone who has ever described Gaelic football to uninitiated foreigners would likely have referenced those games in their description. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, of course, but attempts to drag us backwards should be ignored. Jim Gavin has suggested that more amendments are imminent, while not giving away any details. We await the updates from the FRC with keen interest, they have done much well, a few key tweaks now and we could be really in business.
