CORK MUST HOLD FIRM

Football in Cork is going through a crisis but the county’s five-year plan must be adhered to if the blood and bandage is to rediscover its...

LIKE OTHER COUNTIES, WINNING IS EVERYTHING IN CORK

CALLING FOR TOMPKINS AND MORGAN TO RETURN IS JUST LAZY

They still call it the blood and bandage, but it was never the rallying call for the entire tribe – just the higher caste. Had Cork football the misfortune to have its head ducked into the baptismal font, it would have been christened the pimple and plaster.

A blemish on a handsome face that has spent far too long looking through its magic mirror on the wall wishing to be the prettiest of all and too little looking outside the door to cotton on to the fact that the beauty fashion industry has long moved on.

Over the last couple of months, one Cork catastrophe has begotten another.

How about this for an audit of misery.

The spend on Páirc Uí Chaoimh this week was estimated at €95.8million – just €26m more than had been initially budgeted for but it has been spun as a bargain on the basis that it is not the €110m that Croke Park stadium chief Peter McKenna had predicted.

Meanwhile, the state of the art stadium is open for business as long as your business is not playing ball. The wait for the next game there is literally like watching the grass grow.

Still, they have busied themselves off their non-existent field.

Their former senior administrator Diarmuid O’Donovan took the board to court over the manner in which his redundancy was handled and settled for an undisclosed sum last week.

There was no severance deal on offer for Gene O’Driscoll, the county Under 20 football manager, who walked out on his position last month.

The county’s flagship team went into last night’s Allianz Hurling League fixture against Clare without a point to their name after two rounds.

Meanwhile, the footballers, who have shed two selectors in Eamon Ryan and Ciaran O’Sullivan, are on such a downward trajectory that their ultras are already setting the sat nav in their Mini Cooper for the road to Carrick-on-Shannon next year.

The latter will raise the fewest eyebrows but that is perhaps the greatest indictment of all.

Of the many lazy lines thrown out to explain Cork football’s charity status, the most irritating is that it is impoverished because hurling is king.

It is a convenient lie. Winning, like everywhere else, is everything in Cork.

True, there are fewer sensitive nostrils but offer them a whiff of All-Ireland success and it won’t unduly bother their taste buds as to whether they are sipping the best of claret from the cellar or swilling the worst of soft porter from the trough.

Their failure has been one of governance in both codes but that may be about to change in hurling where a production line has begun to whirr again.

That has been facilitated by the hard work put in at underage level under Rebel Óg and while the results may not be as spectacular in football, they came close to torpedoing Kerry’s five-in-a row All-Ireland minor run in 2015 and last year, losing by one-point in knock-out games.

But talent is never enough; it needs to be supported with structure and good sense.

There has been evidence of that; not least in the five-year plan drawn up by Cork’s own CCC, Graham Canty, Conor Counihan and Brain Cuthbert, which was published last month but has been treated more as a gag book than a blueprint.

It was dismissed last Sunday evening on RTÉ’s Allianz League highlights programme as ‘gobbledygook’ by Joe Brolly and it is true that the language is infected with corporate spoofery.

However, while Brolly played it for laughs, his fellow panellist Dessie Dolan played the most predictable card of all, calling for Billy Morgan and Larry Tompkins to return.

It is that kind of lazy analysis which Cork football needs to be weaned off as it is utterly delusional to think that it is the gift of any individual, no matter how inspirational, to kiss it better.

But if you strip away the verbosity in that plan, the pathway to a better future is visible.

The appointment of a ‘project co-ordinator’ – in effect a director of football – is critical because the game needs, if not independent governance, then a governor to show it the way.

However, even if board pockets do not run deep enough to facilitate it, there are other changes that can take place for free which can have a profound positive impact.

Nothing sickens Cork folk like hearing their neighbours crow and while they were losing for a third consecutive time to Clare last weekend, Kerry were bringing home two All-Ireland club titles as Peter Keane’s new look team were edging out Dublin in a thriller.

But rather than being sickened by Kerry, they might be better served by following.

While Cork was developing a ploughing field, Kerry developed a six-pitch centre of excellence for a tiny fraction of the cost, with a sports science tie-up with IT Tralee.

That is now beyond Cork’s reach, but plans to develop a formal relationship with its third level institutions are included in that five year strategy, having been beaten to that punch by Cork City who are presently reaping the benefits of their partnership with UCC.

THEY MIGHT BE BETTER OFF LOOKING AT KERRY AS AN EXAMPLE

Those who see that as a minor detail would do well to consider whether Dublin’s supreme conditioning is married in any way to its long-term relationship with DCU.

In 2016, Kerry reduced the number of clubs in their senior championship from 11 to eight – skewering the lowergrade All-Ireland club competitions in their favour.

But it was pruned to protect the quality of its top tier championship, which in turn feeds down to the lower grades, ensuring that players are exposed to not just more football but also more high quality, competitive football than anywhere else.

Meanwhile, in Cork, their championship is not just fattened on the entitlement of senior status – 19 clubs took part last year – it is obese.

Some of those senior clubs played as low as division four and five league football, playing opposition well down the graded food chain.

Cork is already committed to a review as part of that plan, and at both club and inter-county level – where the opposition to a tiered championship seems as potent as ever – the game can only benefit when merit displaces entitlement in dictating status.

The way forward for Cork is printed on paper and those who dismiss it on the basis of its cover are ill-judged.

The challenge for Cork is to have the courage to deliver so that they get to laugh last.