No guarantees in ultra

Denis Hurley looks at what we might expect from Cork in the NFL in terms of players and results

IDEALLY, this would be 2009 Mark II. Back then, Cork won a competitive Division 2 and won Munster before making it to the All-Ireland final. While they lost to Kerry there, it was a good foundation for 2010 and the ultimate glory.

Unfortunately, there are quite a few differences between then and now. In 2008, Cork won more games in the league than they did in 2017, despite only playing five games on the pitch (walkovers had been given to Dublin and Meath during the second strike) and it was a far more settled team. Crucially, the greenhorns coming into that team were doing so with All-Ireland U-21 medals from 2007.

Things have not gone to plan over the past four years since Conor Counihan’s decision to step down. Much was made of the risible statement released after the 2015 Munster championship, but there was at least some truth in the fact that Cork were agonisingly close to winning that provincial title.

Brian Cuthbert fell on his sword after Cork’s poor loss to Kildare in the Qualifiers and sadly Peadar Healy wasn’t able to effect a change in fortune. Cork were relegated in 2016 with the same number of points as Donegal, who reached the league semi-final. If they had stayed up, perhaps they would have been relegated last year anyway, but we’ll never know.

As politicians like to say, we are where are, and that’s in what looks to be a Division 2 without a side head and shoulders above the rest. Roscommon are the closest thing to that as the only one of the eight teams to have been in last year’s All-Ireland quarter-finals, but even with a trip to Dr Hyde Park on the fixture list, Cork won’t – or shouldn’t, at any rate – fear them.

As mentioned above, a key difference between now and 2009 is that the Cork team is in a state of flux and the task for management is to erect the scaffolding and renovate while still living in the house. Ronan McCarthy believes that it’s possible to create a new team and still challenge for promotion – he’s not one for gross exaggeration and he has seen the team at closer quarters than any of the rest of us, so we’ll take him at his word.

McCarthy hasn’t been afraid to dispense with panellists who haven’t pushed on and elsewhere in these pages he speaks of the need to trust players rather than coaching the spontaneity out of them. It’s a noble approach and the hope is that it will reap rewards.

Bar perhaps midfield – where one would expect Ian Maguire and Aidan Walsh to combine, but