Cork need a plan of action to avert full-blown crisis on two fronts
WITHIN Cork, they are learning to be grateful for small mercies. Thier hurling and football teams are only one bad result away from a full-blown crisis, but these things are relative. So, the alarm bells that sounded for the footballers this week, after their implosion against Clare, let the hurlers off the hook.
An eight-point defeat in Nowlan Park, even with a dismal second-half display, doesn’t seem all that bad when set against a team that are dangling over the relegation trap door in Division 2 of the National Football League.
However, Peadar Healy’s side aren’t in action this afternoon, so all focus will be trained on the hurlers again. And it won’t take much for crisis mode to switch to them. If, as expected, Kieran Kingston’s team fall to a third successive defeat at Walsh Park, they are likely to be in a relegation play-off for the second successive season.
Last April, the Cork team got their heads right to engineer a shock win over Galway. But there isn’t much hope of a similar reprieve this year. And there are some who feel that dropping into Division 1B won’t be the worst thing in the world for the Rebels – as it will focus minds as to how exactly the county can lift itself from the quicksand it appears to be sinking in,.
Kevin O’Donovan is into the final of three years as Cork’s coaching officer. He created quite the stir last summer when he circulated a 16-page document to club delegates at a county board meeting, with 25 proposals on how to arrest Cork’s decline in both codes.
There was nothing radical in the document. It was all fairly sensible stuff with, as he pointed out, ‘the betterment of Cork GAA in mind’. It called for the county to appoint a director of both hurling and football, which you imagine is a no-brainer in such a big county. Yet, despite starting a much-needed conversation, there has been little discussion since.
When Cork hurling’s decline is discussed, everything is pointed to the city and how the sport isn’t as popular as it was with kids in its traditional heartland.
O’Donovan proposed a threeyear programme for all children between six and eight in the city schools and clubs. It would include coaching in the schools, the provision of hurleys, helmets and sliotars to all children and nursery programmes co-ordinated between clubs and schools. It still sits in cold storage.
‘When you talk about Cork city, there is the “old city” and the “new city”,’ O’Donovan pointed out this week. ‘The old city is everyone’s traditional view, with the Glen and the Rockie, but the new city stretches out to Glanmire, Ballincollig, even out as far as Blarney. The clubs around there are doing great work, but they need help, they can’t cope with all the numbers and that is where we should come in with a co-ordinated approach.’
O’Donovan says that his document has a modest aim. From current youth participation numbers in Cork of between 25 to 30 per cent, he hopes to bring it up to 35 to 40 per cent.
The perception is that the rot in Cork hurling set in at underage level. The statistics are startling. No All-Ireland minor title since 2001. No All-Ireland Under 21 title since 1999. They have been non-existent in the Harty Cup (the Munster senior schools competition) for a decade.
The fabric of the Waterford team they face this afternoon has been woven by diligent work at under-age coaching. County boss Derek McGrath was at the forefront of that as a teacher in the city’s De La Salle College. McGrath has talked before of how winning at schools and colleges level gave his players the confidence to take their place among more established teams.
However, Cork will only again be a true force in secondary school hurling if the children are caught at primary school. ‘Everything is connected and everyone needs to be working with each other, not pulling against each other,’ O’Donovan explains.
‘We are fortunate in Cork to have two very strong third-level institutions in UCC and CIT, who are very strong in hurling and football. And most of our students don’t go outside the city to go to college, so we need to use that resource more. But that will only come about if we work with them,’ he says.
All of this will take time and, of course, investment, which is a salient point considering the redevelopment of Paírc Uí Chaoimh, which is due to open its gates this summer. The stadium’s face-lift has become a sore point in the county as Cork’s two flagship teams flounder, but with men like O’Donovan trying to devise a plan to ensure Cork rise again, there is hope.
Many of O’Donovan’s suggestions are simple. Last summer, he pointed out that Cork were exporting their best coaching talent to other counties and a more concerted effort must be made to recruit all former Cork stars to their coaching team.
It is often forgotten, given their utter dominance of the sport for the past 15 years, but in 2000, Kilkenny County Board were so spooked by not winning the Leinster minor title that they wrote to 50 former players and asked them to help with the coaching of their development squad. The fruits of that one simple act has been clear to see.
O’Donovan says he doesn’t want to make his efforts to get his plan implemented to be personality-driven. It is just about doing the right thing for the county.
‘Every day, someone comes up to me and says they have a plan to save Cork hurling. But I tell them all the same thing, any plan that is implemented will only work if we are all on the same page, and all working together,’ O’Donovan says.
To get Cork out of their current rut, that needs to happen as a matter of urgency.