Frank Needs to Get it Right

21st Sep 2015

Even though the season for Cork hurling and football senior teams has been well and truly over for some time, Rebel fans find some of those championship butterflies returning again this week as we draw closer to the appointment of new managers to both codes.

The stunning victory of Cork’s camogie stars last Sunday week in the All-Ireland final has added some welcome puffs of air to the dying embers of a season that never lit up for Cork fans. The burning Rebel flame inside the hearts of the living legend Briege Corkery (now with a combined 15 All-Ireland medals on her mantelpiece) and her team is yet another major sign in big flashing lights that if Cork GAA got its act together the men’s teams could be equally successful.
 

Cork camogie captain Aisling Thompson leads the lap of honour. Frank Murphy and the Cork County board have no say or control over the ladies games in Cork.

Cork are now tied with the Dubs on 26 camogie titles each – just four short of Cork hurling on 30 senior All-Ireland titles. With no movement for Cork in the men’s roll of honour for more than ten years now it’s likely that camogie will overtake hurling as the most successful sport on Leeside shortly.  

On September 27^th our ladies footballers will clash with Dublin for glory in a repeat of last year’s All-Ireland final. Before 2005 we had never won a ladies football title before (that’s the last year we won a senior hurling All-Ireland by the way) and Kerry were on 11 wins. If Eamon Ryan’s girls beat the Dubs we will only be one All-Ireland behind The Kingdom in the roll of honour.

And just in case you were worried about the underage setup – Cork ladies minor footballers won their All-Ireland too so the conveyor belt of talent is unlikely to stop anytime soon.

Similarly the Rebel Óg hurling scene is on fire. We recently won all seven national titles. Yes, all of them. Next year some of those kids may move up to minor and that’s where the trouble seems to start for Cork hurling teams. It has been well over ten years since there have been any minor, U21 or senior victories.

Let’s not even bother with satire or sarcasm – the county secretary Frank Murphy will pick the next hurling and football manager - the clubs know it, the players know it, the board knows it and worthy candidates for the job who have fallen foul of him over the years certainly know it – and he really needs to get this one right. 
 

Frank will choose the next football and hurling managers shortly.

Passionate hurling fans on our sports forum have been debating this issue since the spirit-sapping defeat to Galway. One post contains a Youtube video of the full coverage of the 2006 All-Ireland semi final when Cork defeated Waterford. What is very clear from the footage is that that highly decorated team possessed a manic self-belief and determination unmatched in the following ten years – the similarities with the current Kilkenny team are striking.

The Rebels ground out a victory that was brutal and hard fought against a teak tough Deise side that featured hardshaw scobes like John Mullane, Ken McGrath and Dan Shanahan. The latter is currently to be seen pounding the side lines as part of the current impressive Waterford revival roaring on his players with more than a hint of Davy Fitz’s crazy-eye.

In injury time in that game Corcoran, wearing number 14, can be seen scrapping in the left back position as if his life depended on it. When he goes to clear a ball you can see that his body is telling him he is spent but his mind refuses to bend. He drives on.

Wouldn’t it be great to see the likes of Corcoran or another hero from that team doing the same as Dan Shanahan in 2016? Cork fans know that there is absolutely no chance of this because of the grudge-politics in Cork GAA – Corcoran and many of his former teammates were vocal in their support for players during the 2008-09 strike. 

As sad and pathetic as this situation is one of the positives for hurling in Cork today however is that the many men we saw in Cork jerseys in 2015 are certainly as skilful as the warriors of the 2003-2006 era.

You could even make a credible argument that Conor Lehane, Seamus Harnedy and Pat Horgan are better stick men than the likes of  Timmy Mac, Joe Deane or the O’Connor twins (it would make a great barstool debate) but it was the manic intensity and never-say-die attitude of the latter that brought them so many victories. It’s like the ‘Chill’ emblazoned on Cork jerseys is having a subliminal effect on current players – as well as a modern hurling brain we need a serious motivator too.

This is what makes the appointment of the right hurling bainisteoir so important because given the encouraging signs underage, the legacies being built by Cork camogie and ladies football (who are not administered by the Cork County Board) and the fact that we already have several superb senior hurlers many fans feel that hurling greatness is actually not that far away if the right man gets the job.

This is why some fans are saying that these two managerial appointments are as important as the election of the next Taoiseach and U.S. president combined. In fairness, it’s much more important than that.