Leeside progress checked
The enthusiasm pulsing through Cork hurling has been checked by Kingston’s exit
After a decade of decline and drift, they were relevant again
IT is interesting that while an argument about the personality of managers wheezed on in recent days, Kieran Kingston slipped away from that stage on a quiet Saturday afternoon.
Jim Gavin has been subjected to unconvincing and ultimately meaningless criticism for not being happy enough after Dublin won the Football Championship, and while that discussion staggered on into the weekend, a manager even less enamoured of attention left as Cork’s hurling chief.
Kingston never prioritised media duties but just as the Dublin chief proved the success of his approach with another All-Ireland Championship, Kingston’s methods bore spectacular results until his young team were undone by Waterford in a semifinal last month.
Declining a place in the headlines did not obscure the extent of the job Kingston had done with the county, and that is why news of his leaving has caused such disappointment, and no little anger, in Cork.
Up until last Saturday afternoon, when the county board shared the news that he was not staying on in the position, this had been a good-news year for hurling in the county.
After almost a decade of drift and decline, they were relevant again.
Most of the credit for that has to go to Kingston. He introduced young players and, better again, he stuck with them. The result was a provincial opener against Tipperary at the end of May for which Kingston named five debutants.
Cork shocked the All-Ireland champions and raised a gallop through the summer that looked at times like it could carry them all the way to September.
They frazzled Waterford in a Munster semi-final after beating Tipperary, and then entirely outplayed Clare in the final.
By the time they got to Croke Park, Waterford were sore, hardened by the qualifiers and waiting. They clamped hard on Cork’s tyros, in particular Mark Coleman, and the Rebels’ run was at an end.
It was generally regarded as a mere setback; despite the defeat, even the most Eeyorish of Cork supporters could not consider next season with anything but anticipation.
That sense of a future pulsing with promise has now been checked, and recrimination was not long in following.
There have been murmurs of unhappiness, with claims the management could not find a pitch to train on before one Allianz League game in the spring. That is astonishing in what is the largest GAA county in Ireland, both in geographical terms and by number of clubs.
While it is not clear if frustration with the board was a decisive factor in Kingston’s decision, that he has chosen to go after just two seasons in charge, and with such obvious progress being made, is a major blow to the executive.
Chairman Ger Lane implied that the commitments involved in inter-county management were influential in Kingston’s decision. ‘It’s disappointing, obviously, after the team had such a good year, but managing an inter-county team is a massive commitment,’ said Lane.
That is true, and Kingston had spent three years as a selector under his predecessor Jimmy Barry Murphy before assuming the main job. However, nothing lightens a burden like success, and Cork could have looked forward to the coming season with justifiable confidence. Their younger players, including Kingston’s son Shane, an outstanding half-forward, would have the benefit of a full season tempered in the hardest environment they could face, and this in a hurling landscape featuring no towering stand-out. Galway were deserved All-Ireland champions but are not unassailable standard-setters in the way the 2007 and 2008 Kilkenny sides under Brian Cody were. Cork fans would have envisaged going at least one step further after the progress of this season.
With Kingston’s exit, though, that confidence must be checked.
When they meet tonight, the Cork board will stress their ambition to have a replacement announced within weeks. If they choose to go outside Kingston’s management team, then that is an imperative as players will need to be acquainted with a new man before their pre-season work begins in a matter of weeks.
There is no indication they will go beyond the support group assembled by Kingston, which leaves John Meyler and Pat Ryan in strong positions.
Whether the eventual replacement will be called a coach or manager will be noted, too. When Ronan McCarthy was chosen to lead the footballers earlier this year after Peadar Healy left, he was named as coach rather than the traditional designation of manager.
‘In the last 12 months we’ve made the decision to move away from the term manager to coach, because the coach is the important role,’ said Lane at the time of McCarthy’s arrival, before adding, ‘In this case I would imagine Ronan will take up the dual role.’
In that case, then they could call McCarthy anything they liked; it reads as nothing more than a cosmetic move. If, though, this is part of a move towards a coach working solely with players while another figure deals with logistics and the practical management that attends a county team, then taking over from Kingston could appeal more to some candidates.
A figure like Ryan, for instance, is renowned as one of the most talented coaches in Cork hurling, and a climate where somebody else was responsible for the countless duties expected of a manager beyond the training pitch, could appeal to such a candidate.
But nothing is certain yet. Tonight’s meeting might bring clarity. Long-term watchers of the governance of Gaelic games in Cork are conditioned to be slow in hoping for that.
And it is the return of uncertainty as Kingston takes his leave that has fans feeling anxious once again.