Tweaks to system and some patience: how Cork football can bounce back

It’s beating for 9pm on Monday evening.

Keith Ricken has just seen his Cork minor team beaten by 10 points by Kerry in a no-jeopardy Munster quarter-final, has spoken to his players in a large huddle post-match, and is now fielding questions in the middle of the Páirc Uí Rinn field.

The Irish Examiner is last to join the mini media scrum. Ours is the last question of the lot. Our question to Ricken is this: What have you made of Cork football’s underage structures since re-immersing yourself at development squad level in 2023?

The question is asked because of the worrying slippage across post-primary, minor, and U20 in recent years.

For context, this coming Sunday will mark two years since a Cork football team bettered one in green and gold. In the two years since, there have been four U20 championship defeats at the hands of the neighbours and four more at minor. Only one of those defeats was by a single score. Nine points was the average margin of defeat.

The average margin of defeat at the business end of Munster’s post-primary competitions is significantly chunkier and significantly more worrying. The sole impression now being made by Cork schools in the Corn Uí Mhuirí is ensuring the semi-final line-up isn’t an exclusively green and gold affair.

One Cork school - Hamilton High School Bandon - reached the last four of the most recent edition. One Cork school - Patrician Academy Mallow - is all that made last year’s semi-finals too. They were hammered 20 and 11 points respectively.

No Cork winner of the Corn Uí Mhuirí since 2011. No Cork winner of the Munster U17 Frewen Cup since 2016. Both of those wins were by Coláiste Chríost Rí, now competing at Senior B level in the province.

Back to Ricken. The minor boss is incapable of addressing the state of Cork football in soundbite fashion. His answer runs for six minutes. His answer leans heavily on nuance.

He opens by stating that there is a “good” structure in place. Niall Twomey, Cork GAA’s head of coaching and games development, he adds, is less than two years in the job and so improvements will be achieved the longer his feet are under the table.

Ricken’s overall point, though, is that the system and structures could be better, could be more synchronised. The desire is there by those at the coalface to strengthen the underage pillars, but time is required.

“It is disjointed in one sense. Post-primary, clubs, and development squads are in their own silos. There is scope for linking more of our schools, development squads, and clubs. Next year the county board is hoping to have a more concrete fixture plan with the schools, which would be a good move. I'd love to see our schools compete more. But that is not to say there aren't people doing great work in those schools.

“I haven't been a critic of Rebel Óg because I know the people in it and they are superb people. But I do think over the last number of years that there are too many games and maybe not enough training and coaching done. It is trying to get the balance right.

“So, a tweak here and there. Our U20s, our minors tonight; the evidence is there that we have to tweak it. But would I be panicking and throwing the baby out with the bath water? I would not.”

Ricken was U20 manager when Cork went the distance in 2019. The minors won the All-Ireland the same year. A dream Year One to the famous five-year plan. There was no All-Ireland reached or captured in the ensuing four years.

Much commentary of late has focused on there being no review of the now concluded five-year plan and the discontinuation of the football project co-ordinator role. The commentary, according to Ricken, has been too negative.

“A lot of people are very critical of Cork football, at times, and it probably doesn't need that. You are playing your competitions in Munster against the best county that has ever played football. If you are constantly fighting Muhammad Ali, it is hard to be taken seriously sometimes.

“We are a good county, we’ve good clubs, we've a good tradition of football, we just need to tweak some stuff. I am not as negative as a lot of people. We have to do stuff, but I think we are doing stuff.”

One move he wouldn’t be in favour of, as floated by Cork CEO Kevin O’Donovan at a recent Cork Chamber breakfast, is asking players at 15 years of age whether they want to be a Cork hurler or Cork footballer.

“The other thing I would say is that big bodies move slow. There are a lot of moving parts to Cork football to bring it together. And then there's the dual player and a kind of movement at underage not to have dual players. Is that a good or bad thing? I don't know. Sometimes I think there is room for exceptional players.

“There is a very good U16 team and a very good U15 team coming through. It will take time. I've been here when Cork were wrote off and Cork were gone. All of a sudden we win an All-Ireland and all of a sudden something is coming.”

His Cork team lost to Kerry by 10 points. They didn’t lose because of the county’s underage structures, he insisted. They lost because they had eight wides and a 33% conversion rate as compared to Kerry’s one wide.

The necessary boots and brain power are on the ground to close the very obvious gap that has formed and is growing. The necessary energy is there too. The energy now must be on bringing together all the different groupings and bringing everyone out of their different silos. The bigger picture is the only picture that counts.

“It is up to us the football people, we can't look to anybody else to do our bits and pieces,” said Ricken.

“You are asking me if there has to be structural changes, I think there has to be. I wouldn't like to change any structures that would change the people involved. I know the lads that were involved with the U20s, Eamon O'Connor, James Condon. They give their heart and soul to it.

“A lot of very good people in there, probably just need to tweak the system. The appetite is there for it, the brains is there for it. We have good people to do that and I am hopeful they will do that.”

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