Cork U2O Football 2023

[TheOutdoorThreadmill]

One other major issue the Munster Council have got to play group style championship s for our Minor and U20 Competition s its done in Hurling why cant it be done in Football ???? I know the answer Money !

More like the fact that out of the 62 times the u20/21 championship has been played Cork and Kerry have won it 58 times and the 91 times the minor championship has been played Cork and Kerry have won it 80 times.

 

[BettyDoesMallow]

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One other major issue the Munster Council have got to play group style championship s for our Minor and U20 Competition s its done in Hurling why cant it be done in Football ???? I know the answer Money !

Best job is have two groups of 3 and put Cork and Kerry in the same group, with top 2 into semi-finals.
No point splitting Cork and Kerry up, as weaker counties would get hammered and Cork & Kerry wouldn't gain anything from facile wins, bar the once every 4 or 5 years a weaker county produces a strong team like Clare did this year.

Or maybe a group of 4 weaker counties, top 2 into semi-final. Kerry and Cork playoff to see who plays the runner-up in the semi-final.

 

[DougMM]

Usually I try to remain balanced and positive after Cork underage matches, but it's difficult not to be frustrated after a match like last night's. I'm not overly bothered about Cork losing underage games but it's beyond annoying that we never seem to learn our lessons at any level. How many years have people been talking about Cork's kickouts as a weakness (it must be 10 years since Alan O'Connor came out of retirement to help us win kick-outs against Kerry)? Has there been a semblance of improvement in them in the last 10 years? What are Rebel óg doing to address this consistent and obvious area of weakness in the most important area of Gaelic football? We have the largest number of GAA clubs in Ireland, so it's either the typical Cork arrogance of refusing to adapt to the modern game or it's incompetence, but either way it's hard to see things turning around quickly here.

Winning your own kick-outs is one thing but even when we did start winning those long kickouts last night in the second half, it wasn't a massive advantage to us because Kerry only ever had to commit 5/6 players into the Cork half and we started going long. At any given point and time on Cork kick-outs, Kerry were as likely to score as we were as there were 6 defenders in both halves, and the kickouts were high lofty kicks into crowded areas. How often do we see any of the progressive counties accepting such low odds on kick-outs? You will almost never see them go for long 50-50 kick-outs when there are just 8 opposition players in their half, let alone a 6-man zonal press like yesterday. When the likes of Dublin and Kerry go for those long kick-outs it's because they've manipulated the number of players in both halves in such a way that winning possession means that there are goal opportunities and losing kick-outs isn't overly detrimental or threatening as they have 10/11 players behind the ball.

Cork's kick-out strategy was an issue but our setup for Kerry's kickouts was arguably even more disappointing. On Kerry's kickouts we again went with the 6-man zonal press for the majority of the game. A strategy that no other top county has been consistently using in the last 5/6 years, mainly because of its obvious limitations. This, combined with man-to-man marking on the 6 Kerry forwards from kick-outs, meant that we neither overly protected our defence nor looked like regaining possession and building momentum. In fact their second goal came straight from a short kick-out after we missed a goal chance of our own. The Kerry keeper hit the free corner-back from the kick-out and after three passes the ball was in the back of the Cork net. Kerry repeatedly brought their half-forward line and one of their corner-forwards into midfield for kick-outs, and left an ocean of space in front of the Kerry full-forward. It looked like a pretty obvious kick-out move that they had been working on in training to target our set in stone kick-out shape. They could easily have scored another 2/3 goals from variations of the same move throughout the match.

It's been said before, but other counties seem to be treating kick-outs like NFL teams treat restarts. They have 4 or 5 different shapes they can use at any given time on both sides of the ball, depending on the opposition's shape, and within those different shapes they have 9 or 10 variations. The goalkeeper is like the quarter-back and is responsible for picking the best option within the shape, but has the leeway to change the shape. Kerry completely changed their shape after Cork went back to man-to-man marking with 5 minutes to go. They had some other variations they used against Clare of hitting the Kerry half-back on a late run and I'd love to see a comparison of how much time the Cork players playing yesterday had spent on kick-outs against the Kerry players, not just at under 20 level, but throughout the underage youth squads.

 

[DougMM]

If the players of any team don't have the basic skills then there isn't a future for that team and there is no conveyor for the inter-county senior team.

Regarding the minor game 3 years ago the tackle wasn't part of the the array in the Cork skill set and it wasn't either last night. Cork's kicking was also poor but instead of improving it has gone back further. In Tralee Conor Hanlon had a very good game until he went off injured, he scored the only goal to give Cork impetus and keep them in the game, last night he wasn't playing and is constantly injured. He is skilfull and a really good footballer but he is injury prone and very inclined to put on weight easily. I don't think he will make it as a senior inter-county player unless a lot of things change to map his future as a player.

Sean Brady is gone back from his minor days and is too often between 2 stools as a wing-back and a wing-forward, IMO he hasn't shown he is a forward.

Seamus O'Callaghan was starting all through 2020 until late on when part of the defence was re-arranged then he was dropped and Liam McCarthy came in and was selected centre-back, neither of them are involved now. Another 2 good players who performed in Tralee were Fergal and Sean Walsh, I understand both of them are now living abroad.

Jacob O'Driscoll was sub in 2020, now he's full-back and captain.

The point is that most of these players should have been driving on from the performance in 2020 but too many players are missing and many more have gone back in standard.

Liam O'Connell and Sean Dore have potential but although O'Connell was mobile last night with good pressing I still question his kicking and foot passing. His balance was poor for defending one of the goals but he made one great catch at mid-field. Sean Dore was good v Limerick and was a loss going off injured last night.

I completely agree with you that this team’s lack of improvement since minor level is a worry. As you’ve mentioned they’ve had injuries, but if Clare are able to bring this Kerry team to injury time, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be giving them a game.

I do think we’re in danger of conflating two things though around the general skill level in Cork and the general trends of where GAA is going in the top counties though. As has been said already, GAA is not the sport it once was. When you’re playing the top counties who have good tactical set-ups, you don’t get many opportunities to kick the ball. When you’re playing counties like Cork with poor tactical set-ups, who go zonal with the forwards and man-for-man in defence on kick-outs, you have plenty of opportunities to kick the ball. There were times last night where Kerry had one full-forward with 50 metres of space in front of him. I’m sure the Cork players would have backed themselves to make kick-passes in those sorts of situations. Instead most of our kicks seemed to be rushed with two players around the player competing for possession most times.

I’m not as closely involved with the club scene as I was before because of travelling, but I watched the last few minor finals and I thought the standard of footpassing in both, particularly in 2022, was very high. I think at times when we play Kerry the difference in skill levels are amplified due to the amount of space they create for themselves, and conversely take away from us. You could rightly point to the fact that creating this space is a skill in itself and I’d definitely agree that we could be better and quicker at foot-passing on transition.

 

[The Highway Man]

you are right players we have but coaching is the problem...add players like Colin Molloy, Tim O Brien, Colm Gillespie, Darragh Gough, Gearoid Kearney, Ed Meyers, Darragh O Brien, Michael McSweeney, to you list and many more can we make a proper team panel out of those injury free for next year !

you could have David Clifford in there, waste of time. when you have a coach who will not rectify Kickout strategy , lazy defending, handpassing a game to death , running up blind alleys, Crabbing, refusal to kick the ball, loose hand passes etc etc etc . The Senior team will echo this in a few weeks. if the hurling goes well this will be kicked down the street. Someone off Dwyer's backroom team will get the nod. RINSE AND REPEAT.

 

[Cork87]

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

 

[rebel boy]

There was previously an inter divisional competition previously at u16 level, the Liam Lyne Cup if I remember correctly.
Very few lads slipped through the net, you will always have a late bloomer but the majority of county minor players came to the fore.
It was a great competition that identified the best players at that age group. Again Rebel Og has different areas, not the same though imo.

 

[Uisce]

Rebel Og makes no sense.

By U16 a player will have played his nearest rivals at most 4 times in competitive games. Travelling across the county to play a team you have no knowledge of or association with does not inspire the young players. It also puts huge strain on team mentors to leave work early etc.

The divisions don’t make sense at adult level but at underage they sure do.

At schools level, Cork is way behind in the organisation and application of its games. Every year, fixtures and competitions go unfinished. Often schools will only play 1 game at an age grade. Utilise these 4G pitches and play more games with more correct gradings

 

[Minstrel]

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

Nail on the head. This is exactly whats happening.

 

[Elmnop]

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.