No excuses for Cork in numbers game...
ONE of the most entertaining aspects of Carlow’s tilt at All-Ireland football champions Dublin came via the official Carlow GAA Twitter account which decided to add a bit of colour to the Leinster quarterfinal build-up. ‘Bring your Sam, your Hill, your COYBIB, your hats, flags & headbands. Bring Molly bleedin Malone too but understand this: CARLOW IS RISING.’
It was just one of a series of cheeky promos for a provincial championship that might as well be retitled ‘beat the handicap’ — at least where Dublin are concerned.
‘We weren’t afraid of you then and we ain’t afraid of you now either...’ went another, a sepiatinted photograph from the 1944 Leinster final accompanying it as well as a map of Ireland with Carlow shaded in.
A county’s size and its population are frequent reference guides in Gaelic games:
Carlow (population 56,000) tak- ing on Dublin (population 1.3 million). That’s why the underdogs evoked the old battle against the odds between a shepherd boy who felled a mighty warrior with nothing more than a pebble and a sling. ‘Giant Killings’ tweeted Carlow GAA with an emoji of a coffin and an embedded clip of six of the biggest upsets in football history.
The population argument though is not an accurate barometer in and of itself. It’s not about population — it’s about playing population.
The 1.3billion population of China doesn’t mean that they could put out a team to match Jack McCaffrey, Stephen Cluxton and company, the Gaelic football playing population confined to a tiny group of ex-pats and others who have put down roots in cities like Shanghai where the All-Stars toured in 2013 and where Shanghai Gaelic Football Club is prospering.
At the back of the GAA’s annual report is a page that gives an accurate reflection of the true strength of each county in terms of playing resources. It lists the number of teams registered in 2016 in three separate categories – youth, Under 21 and adult.
Dublin? Not even close to being the county with the most adult senior footballers.
If football’s ‘Super 8’ was based on playing population, here is how the round-robin quarter-finals for 2018 should read:
1. Cork – 263 (adult football teams registered) 2. Dublin – 168 3. Kerry – 121 4. Meath – 110 5. Galway – 108 6. Tyrone – 105 7. Kildare - 90 8. Mayo - 84 It’s hardly a coincidence that the six of the eight teams with the greatest number in terms of human resources will make up Division 1 of the National League in 2018.
A significant All-Ireland contender missing from the list — Donegal — is next in line with 81. Monaghan have been punching above their weight for a long time now, especially under Malachy O’Rourke; the 60 adult teams is a more accurate barometer of that than reference to the county’s population of roughly 61,000.
Which brings us to Cork and why the ‘crisis’ headlines are rightly attached to the waning fortunes of the county senior team, who face the prospect of losing to Tipperary this Sunday in back-toback Championship matches for the first time. This after losing to the same county for the first time since 1944 last summer, being relegated from Division 1 in 2016 and finishing two points from the relegation mire this spring.
Here’s a thing to point up Cork’s under-utilisation of resources and history of living under the thumb of Kerry: Cork have more than twice as many adult footballers. Yes, that’s more than twice.
This is a county that has won 10 of the last 14 Munster U21 football titles, yet whose form and confidence are so fragile after stumbling to a single-point victory over Waterford in the quarter-final that they are 50-1 to secure the Sam Maguire Cup.
The picture of hurling is even more slanted in Cork’s favour. The number of registered adult hurling teams in 2016 was more than
double that of any other county. Here’s how hurling’s ‘Top 9’ would look based on same: 1. Cork – 228 2. Tipperary – 113 3. Galway – 111 4. Dublin – 110 =5. Wexford – 88 =5. Limerick – 88 7. Kilkenny – 85 8. Waterford – 78 9. Clare – 72 In the wake of Cork’s thrilling defeat of All-Ireland holders Tipperary in the Munster quarterfinal, #Corkness started trending. Kieran Kingston and his management team deserve great credit for turning things around but the numbers above again show why the long gaps at senior, U21 and minor level have been deemed unacceptable by Cork’s own public.
Which only goes to prove that it’s about much more than a numbers game.
Look at the hurls outside the church when mass is on in St Kieran’s College in Kilkenny. Or the statue of Mick O’Dwyer in Waterville that stands as a testament to a winning tradition.
Dublin is a lesson in how to combine playing resources and financial investment to realise a county’s potential.
But it’s about a culture of excellence too. A culture of high performance.
Look at the lesson of Skibbereen Rowing Club and how one club in west cork can bring home the medals in the European Championships for Ireland. A lesson in all of the above, not to mention making the most of available resources.
Is it a coincidence that Gary Keegan, the previous Irish Institute of Sport Director, is involved with the Cork hurlers this season?
Carlow’s footballers fit the David mould; Cork’s footballers fit the Goliath.
The next time mention is made of population, remember it’s the playing population that matters.
Cork have no excuses this weekend.
Cork have more than twice as many footballers as Kerry