Cork have run out of excuses
THEY are still all blood and bandage, but this time it’s an image that inspires pity rather than fear. The moment Cork lost their grip on logic and the Championship last summer was when they sent a hobbling Séamus Harnedy back out in extra time in last August’s All-Ireland semi-final against Limerick
Oh yes, he was their boldest and their bravest but when were Cork ever reduced to leaning on a sole warrior to win a war?
Never. I was reared in times when the blood and bandage resonated as a war cry. Cork always had wristy hurlers who could make the ball dance on a stick, but they would cut themselves in two to win that ball in the first place.
There was a reason Cork were feared and that was down to a sense of pride that burned so fiercely that you knew when you played them they had little enough respect for their own bodies, so you knew they would have even less for yours.
In the old days, the likes of Harnedy would have been carted to the sideline long before and he would have departed safe in the knowledge that there were more than enough healthy warriors to go on without him.
These days, Harnedy has the feel of a time traveller from another age; a time that when Cork hurled the rest had reason to feel nervous.
There are such few leaders these days it is quite frightening and it is hard to see why that is.
That deficit of leadership extends beyond the playing field and has left the county in a heap.
Their former secretary Frank Murphy is someone who I have always held in high regard, but during his 45-year reign, it is hard to ignore the evidence that Cork became single party government.
Leadership and governance never benefits when it is not questioned or when it is not challenged, and Cork have been damaged as a GAA county because of that.
Everywhere you look right now it has the feel of a disaster zone.
They have a stadium but no one really yet knows how much it will cost — despite this week’s latest eye-boggling estimate — or when they can play their next game on it.
They still don’t know who is going to pick up the final bill either, but my guess is that the invoice will soon be winging its way out to the clubs.
It is an unnecessary disaster of Cork’s own making.
Meanwhile, their footballers can’t kick the ball out anymore.
Their loss to Clare last Sunday was their third defeat in a row to the Banner County. This, for pity’s sake, is the land of Billy Morgan and Larry Tompkins — a land which has now been vaporised off the face off the football earth. That leaves their hurlers, the team they hold closest to their heart, but they are now entering their 14th year without winning a national title of any sort.
I wrote on this page at the start of the League — although thankfully I did not put the top field on it — that Cork were my fancy to win it on the basis that no other county needed to win one more.
Apparently, they have taken a different view themselves.
Lose tonight to Clare and they will almost certainly miss out on the play-offs, but they will console themselves with the thought that the summer is all that matters.
Funny how that thought process has not really served them well over the previous 13 years.
That old mindset fuelled by pride has been diluted by serial failures and also by the realisation that they are now part of the pack rather than the cock of the walk.
And Cork’s failure is mindset driven. It has been argued that their demise as a GAA county is rooted in structural failure and the lack of an underage strategy.
What a load of nonsense; they are blessed with the most important structure of all. They have more clubs than anyone else, which means that they have more players than anyone else.
Drive past any Cork GAA club any Saturday morning and you will see fields dotted with kids, honing their skill which defines them as a county.
If Cork have problems structurally, then God help the rest of us.
One of the reasons why all that talent has not delivered an AllIreland since 2005 comes back to the lack of leadership on or off the field.
I would not have been a supporter of the player strikes in the noughties, but there was also a sense that rather than park those issues and move on the board sought to draw blood in revenge by putting in place management teams that they knew would go against the grain with the players.
In doing that — and the Gerald McCarthy appointment was the most obvious — they fractured momentum and more importantly spirit.
They are still feeling their way back from that and the one thing that still weighs in Cork’s favour is its sheer size.
They are producing so many good players they will not be kept down indefinitely and that minor team they produced last year is backed up by a number of other excellent underage teams coming through.
On top of that, for the first time in a generation two Cork schools will compete in the Dr Harty Cup final, where rugby stronghold CBC will take on Midleton.
The most important building blocks are in place for Cork to come again, but underage success counts for nothing if it is not backed up by the mental steel that is needed at the highest level.
That means those currently wearing the Cork shirts need to turn the red and white back into the blood and bandage.
And tonight would be as good a place as any to start.
They are now just part of the pack