Cork U2O Football 2023

[Fox Leary]

Before Rebel Og some small country teams would be able to have a cut off there neighbouring town teams. It would be enjoyed as both sets of players would have been going to secondary school together.

But alot of these local parish Rivalries are now gone. Games are been played now by teams that don't know each other,
rivalries are a huge part of the Gaa. These Rivalries can't be manufactured by Rebel Og.

Sometimes there can be too much structure in Cork Gaa with alot not working.

Great post. A huge part of what makes underage enjoyable and exciting for players is those local rivalries.

Supporters feed into it as well which encourages the players more, think about the kind of atmosphere you’d get a Haven-Skibb u16 west cork final or even semi final compared to what you’d get if Skibb went up and played Kanturk in a last 8/16 game in the county. Those things make all the difference.

 

[Bonbon12]

Cork is just too big a county for the rebel og set up to flourish imo

 

[Atlanger]

Why isn't bio banding brought into Cork GAA? If there is one thing that is absolutely dogging Cork football, it's that our teams are largely populated by big, but for the most part, unskillful footballers whose only tactic seems to be trying to burst through gaps that aren't there at the top levels and then passing aimlessly side to side when that tactic doesn't work.

Check out this video below on a bio banding initiative in the Clare underage hurling academy. What's apparent when you watch the more physically developed group play (about 10 minutes in) is how unskillful they look when playing each other relative to similarly aged but less physically developed group. Just one suggestion, but something has to be done about this very obvious problem in Cork football.

 

[CorktilIdie]

Read about this BioBanding recently and was seriously impressed. A sure fire way of retaining the interest of young lads for whom fairness and equality are hugely important. I would fear that, due to the logistical problems associated with the vastness of our county, it might be difficult to implement.
Although it is only in it's infancy, it certainly seems to be working in Clare.

 

[The Highway Man]

200 odd clubs, Jesus fuck surely you can get 30 lads to contest at the all grades, don't mind your bio banding to fuck!

 

[Fox Leary]

Read about this BioBanding recently and was seriously impressed. A sure fire way of retaining the interest of young lads for whom fairness and equality are hugely important. I would fear that, due to the logistical problems associated with the vastness of our county, it might be difficult to implement.
Although it is only in it's infancy, it certainly seems to be working in Clare.

I’ll probably be blasted for talking about Clon now but this is something that has been implemented in our club for the past 2/3 years.

While not wanting to give away all our secrets, it’s fair to say that a few seriously shrewd operators in Clon have been responsible for introducing this amongst several other cutting edge initiatives in the past few years. Myself and Trav have talked about the underage set up in Clon (half jokingly at times) but I’m not exagerating when I say we have WAY more talent now between the ages of 9-13 than we ever had. Genuinely 5/6 intercounty prospects in every year (and that’s from a non-Clon coaching officer)

Maybe it’s down to luck or numbers or maybe it’s because some of the best young players we have are the sons of former players (the standout being the son of an ex Cork footballer who is truly phenomenal). But the people I’ve spoke to have said the use of bio-banding has been a real game changer. I presumed other clubs are doing similiar in-house, maybe not.

 

[Atlanger]

That's the point exactly. We always do get 30 lads at every grade, and they're generally lads that dominate physically at underage, but then don't have the skill for Senior.

 

[JimmyBarrySmurph]

Unfortunately lads I’d say this is just the result of issues around how players are chosen and how development is done of the chosen players all the way down to u14/15, if you go around the county and ask there is a lot of pockets of areas where there is deep frustration with the rebel og mentors for them areas and I think cork gaa really need to go to each area and get HONEST feed back from the clubs because when you have pockets of clubs and local people who think players A B and C would be selected but the rebel og people are selecting players D E and F based off of 2 or 3 trials without what seems to be little info asked for from the local clubs questions are gonna have to be asked because after what seems to be years of this discrepancy one side has to be wrong and from the results we’re seeing I think you would have to say it’s the rebel og side.

For example I was at a couple premier minor club championship games last year and I seen players who were on rebel og panels being outplayed by other players, yet when i asked people from them clubs if these other players were involved with rebel og the most common answer was that they weren’t brought for trials or were gone after 1 or 2 days of trials and I only recall seeing one rebel og coach who was at 1 of these games so how do they expect make sure they’ve cast their net wide enough, I think changes will have to be made

Absolutely spot on.
I coached underage for many years. Recently our closest rivals had 4 players on a Cork Rebel og panel. We had 2. However our rivals danger man, best player and the only guy we had to plan for each time we played them up to minor didn’t get beyond 2 trials at U14. It was just mind boggling. I even enquired off the club was there any reason he wasn’t involved with Cork. They said they couldn’t understand it themselves and also why some of their own were!

 

[JimmyBarrySmurph]

There is talent in Cork, always will be, are the development squads being coached into submission?
Are we leaving lads play/express themselves, tactics can be brought into play at 18-20, what we need to develop are footballers, not as one poster eludes to here as young lads trained to be athletes and robots, who can t think for themselves and do not possess the basic skills.

Is Rebel Og fit for purpose? Travelling all over the county to play meaningless games. What was wrong with divisional championships that brought cut and thrust games against neighboring parishes/school mates, that meant something in front of decent attendances, that led to a high standard of school teams particularly in town teams. Bring them back. Players get more out of these games than they ever will playing a team 20-30 miles away.

Spot on

 

[JimmyBarrySmurph]

I’ll probably be blasted for talking about Clon now but this is something that has been implemented in our club for the past 2/3 years.

While not wanting to give away all our secrets, it’s fair to say that a few seriously shrewd operators in Clon have been responsible for introducing this amongst several other cutting edge initiatives in the past few years. Myself and Trav have talked about the underage set up in Clon (half jokingly at times) but I’m not exagerating when I say we have WAY more talent now between the ages of 9-13 than we ever had. Genuinely 5/6 intercounty prospects in every year (and that’s from a non-Clon coaching officer)

Maybe it’s down to luck or numbers or maybe it’s because some of the best young players we have are the sons of former players (the standout being the son of an ex Cork footballer who is truly phenomenal). But the people I’ve spoke to have said the use of bio-banding has been a real game changer. I presumed other clubs are doing similiar in-house, maybe not.

Weren’t Clon well beaten by Ross u14 or u16 this week?