‘When your back is against the wall, you have to come out fighting’
Cork boss John Cleary knows that his side is in a tight corner
IF THE penny has not yet dropped that Cork football is fast approaching a cliff edge, their view today should confirm it. They will travel to St Joseph’s GAA club, Ederney, in north Fermanagh, a venue not without its charm but one also that would not be associated with mainstream intercounty action.
Lose here and come the summer, the possibility of Cork not playing in the All-Ireland football championship will feel more like a probability.
A defeat would leave them pointless after four rounds and with no further room for error, all in the knowledge that their get-out-of-the-Tailteann-Cup card in the provincial championships can only be secured by beating Kerry in Killarney to reach the Munster final.
They are in a tight corner but they have been in tighter.
Two years ago, in the final round of the league, they travelled to Tullamore in what was effectively a Division 2 relegation play-off, also in the knowledge that Kerry awaited in a Munster semi-final.
John Cleary was, in the absence of Keith Ricken who had to step back due to illness, their interim manager who led them to that crunch win over Offaly.
There had been a pining within the county, particularly so since he led them to an All-Ireland under-21 victory in 2009, for the Castlehaven man to be given the reins but it took until last year for it to become a reality.
There was enough in the
60-year-old’s first season to justify the expectation. A strong league campaign, and an even stronger summer one – despite the blip of a defeat to Clare in Munster – that saw them put the frighteners on Kerry, take down Mayo and dump Roscommon out of the championship, ensured this season that they were identified as the bolter team to watch.
Tipped to be in a three-way race for promotion, instead after defeats to Donegal, Louth and Cavan, they are in a frantic scramble to stay afloat.
‘I always said this year was going to be tougher because when you make a bit of progress you kind of come over the radar and the teams we are playing are going to have their eyes on us every time we go out,’ said Cleary.
‘Look, I don’t think we are a million miles away either. Maybe a couple of results have masked the thing a small bit, but we haven’t become a very poor team overnight,’ he insists. If the results might contradict that optimism, Cleary’s argument is not without reason.
While heavily beaten in the opening round against Donegal, against Louth and Cavan they have had the chances to win both games but their execution has let them down.
Last weekend against Cavan they, in Cleary’s own words, ‘butchered’ two clear goal chances in the first half, while they scored from just eight out of a staggering 21 attempts in the second half.
Those numbers can be used for either side of the argument, suggesting a lack of composure on one hand, validating a degree of control on the other. The reality is that misfortune raised its head from the start – injuries to key players, in particular Conor Corbett, Cathal O’Mahony and goalkeeper Micheal Martin, have hurt.
In the latter’s absence, despite playing two of his understudies, Patrick Doyle and Chris Kelly, they have struggled off the kicking tee, while the absence of Corbett and O’Mahony – the latter is set to miss the entire league – saw them rush Brian Hurley back into the team when the suspicion is that he is not at full fitness.
Cleary stresses that excuses are the last thing he is looking for, but insists that for teams in Division 2 and 3 where championship status is at play, the current fixture calendar is not fit for purpose.
‘We had Castlehaven playing until the new year and then a few weeks later we were heading to Donegal in a game that you were trying to put points on the board and the following week playing Louth when you do not have your full squad of players available, in a game that was going to bring into question your championship status.
‘What the GAA are trying to do looks alright on paper but the practicality of trying to squeeze everything into a six-month period to me is not very practical for players or teams, when it is week on week on week.
‘When you get up to Division 1, it
can be that bit easier because the pressure is off and in the back of your mind you are in the Sam Maguire already anyway. But for anyone trying to fight to get in there, it is really difficult,’ says Cleary.
He is not the first in the league’s second tier to complain about the squeeze that is being put on teams in that division.
His opposite number this afternoon, Fermanagh manager Kieran Donnelly, had called for league status at the start of the league rather than at the end of it to determine championship status, while last weekend, Meath manager Colm O’Rourke called for the provincial championships to be played prior to the start of the league.
That latter suggestion echoed an initial proposal for championship reform, which would have seen the link severed between the All-Ireland series and the provinces, that Cork CEO Kevin O’Donovan advocated for but which was rejected narrowly by Congress in 2021.
‘It is an interesting proposal alright but I am not too sure the provincial councils will be too happy playing their championships in January and February,’ suggests Cleary.
‘But tweaks need to be made to it, even further down along the line teams in the heat of championship playing three weeks in a row needs to be looked at. It is trying to flog a dead horse at the end of the day.
‘Our experience from it last year is that we felt we were not able to give our best in the quarter-final against Derry because we were that small bit fatigued.
‘That is not to say that we would have won it or anything like that but you would definitely like the chance to prepare and prepare properly for those big games, especially for the quarter-finals where you have one set of teams who have a two-week break and the other four have six or seven days, it is probably not a level playing pitch, but, look, that’s for another day.’
And this is all about today. In terms of size, it is the ultimate David and Goliath clash, arguably the GAA’s smallest unit pitted against its biggest. But when it comes to Cork football it never quite rolls like that.
When they met for the first time in championship football 20 years ago, Fermanagh cruised to a seven-point win in Croke Park. Ever since, Cork’s discomfort – particularly when playing against well structured teams where patience and taking care of the ball is paramount – has been evident, not least in that dour quarter-final defeat to Derry.
Fermanagh will ask those questions today, ones which go right to the heart of Cork’s identity as a football county.
‘Ulster games are a bit different in that they can be defensive and they can be a lot more patient and perhaps at times that is what catches us, in that maybe we are not as patient as they are because we are not used to slugging it out to get a result,’ Cleary admits.
‘It is something we will have to learn and learn fast because in this league, we are playing four Ulster teams and it can be difficult at times but that is the challenge.
‘I would still think that the running game is where Cork are probably best but that does not work against certain opposition and you have got to change and you have got to evolve and hopefully that is what we are trying to do.’
Whatever they do, it must be done quickly. A two-time All-Ireland winner as a player, not playing in the Sam Maguire this summer is something Cleary is not even contemplating right now.
Instead, he will hope the situation his team finds itself in – they still have to play Kildare and Armagh at home with a road trip to Meath sandwiched between – is one that will get the very best out of them.
‘I am sure it would be a lot easier for us if we were going up the road with four or six points under our belt. I am sure the lads are feeling that we need to get a result. Our performances haven’t been terribly bad but we haven’t got the results.
‘And if you are going to progress when your back is against the wall, you have got to come out fighting.’
I would still think that the running game is where Cork are probably best