Dublin desperate to prevent star Jack from leaving
Third hammering on the cards
DUBLIN will seek to persuade Footballer of the Year Jack McCaffrey to play a part in the county’s All-Ireland defence. Medical student McCaffrey is reported to be committed to taking up an offer of an overseas work placement as part of his course which would rule him out of the early rounds but it is understood that he has intimated he would like a ‘break’ after his placement term is completed. Dublin manager Jim Gavin has been aware of the situation for a number of weeks and is still hopeful that the Clontarf clubman will be available for the business end of the AllIreland series. The jet-heeled 22-yearold’s status as one of the game’s brightest young talents was confirmed last year when he outpolled team-mates Bernard Brogan and Philly McMahon to be named Footballer of the Year, just two years after he was the recipient of the young player gong. Speculation about his availability comes just months after Dublin fullback Rory O’Carroll confirmed he would be unavailable this summer because he is travelling to New Zealand. The loss of a second All-Star defender would prove testing even allowing for the champions’ depth, admitted former Dublin wing-back Paul Curran yesterday ‘Jack would be a big miss because we have already lost one of our better defenders in Rory O’Carroll and another one going of the quality of Jack would be felt. ‘He has come a long way in such a short time, his consistency is exceptional,’ said Curran.
IT might have only grabbed the attention of actuary-leaning nerds, but the Cork footballers hit the kind of uncharted waters last weekend that can only invite trouble.
One of the defining characteristics of the Allianz Football League since it was stream-lined into four straight divisions in 2008 is that it has served as a buffer in preventing lop-sided contests.
In the 124 regular round group games played under the streamlined format, just 21 games have coughed up results with double digit margins.
Prior to this year, the highest number of hammerings, based on that measure, in the top flight was five (2012 & 14), but with four already notched up after three rounds, that is a ceiling which this season is likely to break through.
The presence of an out of depth Down team meant that was always likely to be the case, something which has been reaffirmed in the 17 and 16-point hammerings that they have suffered at the hands of Donegal and Kerry.
But it is Cork who went last weekend where no other team has gone before when they followed up a 10-point double score loss to Donegal with an 18-point trimming from Roscommon.
In so doing, they became the first team to have suffered back-toback double-digit hammerings; an indignity not even visited on Monaghan ( 2009) and Westmeath (2014), who were relegated pointless and with respective scoring differentials of minus 70 and 69.
The fear that Cork could take a third consecutive hammering in a row is real as they head for Croke Park tomorrow night to take on All-Ireland champions Dublin, but it is not so much their unwanted place in the record books that is the concern.
‘This is a huge game in trying to get back on track,’ admits former Cork manager Larry Tompkins.
‘It is important to win the game but it is even more important that there is a big solid performance so this team goes to the wire in a big game and that they are competitive. If they go to Croke Park on Saturday night and got a bit of a drubbing again, then you would have real worries.
‘Confidence is a huge thing and it is not good if you have young players and they are getting a lot of beatings, confidence is shattered and you are looking over your shoulder. These are things that you won’t want developing,’ insists Tompkins.
Of course, the trauma of losing big in the spring can be over-stated and there is some evidence to suggest that it can do as much good as harm.
Kerry’s final round humbling to Cork in 2014 developed into a reference point to explain how their season flipped when they became champions that September.
Heavy defeats demand introspection and resolutions — Kerry committed to protecting their defence in the fall-out to that loss and it became an enduring theme of their j ourney through that summer.
A lot of eyes will focus on how Cork s et- up tomorrow night in what will be seen as an early test of Peadar Healy’s management, after going one-on-one against Roscommon saw his defence l eak f our goals and 34 scoring chances in total last weekend.
The expectation is that they will seek to borrow a page from Tyrone and Derry’s playbook last year when they faced Dublin in Croke Park and bunker in, but playing to structure has never been Cork’s strength.
Expecting to come up with a plan inside a week is asking a lot, admits Tompkins.
‘It is not easy to get up to the level of Dublin, Mayo, Kerry and Donegal. ‘It will take a few years before these guys can develop into a systems-based game. ‘You can’t just go to a fellow today and ask him to go play sweeper, you see with teams l i ke Mayo that it takes a bit of time to work these things out and get them going.’ It could also be argued that systems serve little purpose i f they are only used to hide other frailties.
Cork’s capacity to implode is not new and it dogged Healy’s predecessor Brian Cuthbert in his two-year reign.
That may come down to a lack of quality — with the exception of Brian O’Driscoll there has been little to emerge in terms of new talent over the past four seasons — but Tompkins argues it is in the main down to how they play.
‘Something that Cork will have to learn to cope with is when they meet good players who are rugged they must compete on their level.
‘Cork need to develop players who live on the edge a bit, players that can take a game by the scruff of the neck when it is needed.’
But if there is comfort for Cork, it is that nothing begets resolve like humiliation.
There is a reason why teams rarely go down big in back-to-back games, and tomorrow night Cork will hope that bleeding pride will fuel a huge effort.
‘You would be looking for the rebound factor,’ added Tompkins.
‘There is no better way for Cork to show that they have got over this than by going up to Croke Park and proving that they are much better than they have showed.’