Darragh Ó Sé: In the last few years, Cork footballers have been a disgrace

So it’s official now. The Cork v Kerry game is going to be in Páirc Uí Rinn. I know it was only a case of the Munster Council rubber-stamping it on Monday night but that doesn’t make it any less of a farce of a thing. I’m all for players having a say and standing up for themselves but I’m amazed nobody called their bluff here.

Does anybody really think they weren’t going to field a team? Were they seriously going to wave Kerry through to the Munster final and throw their hat at the whole of 2022? Come on, now. Apart from anything else, that would take a level of stomach and bottle that they haven’t had a lot of recent history of showing, let’s be straight up about it.

In the last few years, Cork footballers have been a disgrace. In the way they’ve performed, in the way they’ve stood up for the great history of Cork football. They haven’t played for their jersey. One win against Kerry in 10 years of football is a terrible return, there’s no two ways about it.

They could have taken any number of stands over the years. They could have fought for better coaching or better strength and conditioning or any of that background stuff. They could have drawn a line in the sand over the tactics they were being sent out to play with or the way it seems to have been accepted that they don’t belong in Division One anymore.

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You know who else has no problem with it? The Cork hurlers. They're playing Clare in Thurles on Sunday

Every one of those issues has had a bigger say in where they find themselves than a choice of venue.

Ed Sheeran is playing Páirc Uí Chaoimh. In fairness, we'd have been happy enough to solve the problem in Kerry by having him play in Killarney if he wished. Fitzgerald Stadium has a long history of red-heads dazzling the crowds, after all. But he's down to fulfil the fixture in Páirc Uí Chaoimh and I have no problem with that.

You know who else has no problem with it? The Cork hurlers. They’re playing Clare in Thurles on Sunday. It’s a home game for them, a massive fixture that will go a long way to deciding where they stand at the end of the Munster Championship. But there’s no cribbing about having to play it in Thurles. Once young Sheeran was booked into the Páirc, that was the end of it.

Players’ side

In any row or dispute down the years, my inclination is always to take the players’ side. They are the men in the arena. They are the ones putting in the hours that nobody sees and that nobody thanks them for. Putting yourself up to be an intercounty footballer is a tough road to choose for yourself and none of the smartarses who sit on the sidelines and think to themselves that they could’ve been contenders really and truly have a notion what it takes.

So I do have some sympathy with the Cork footballers here because they are being moved out of Páirc Uí Chaoimh through no fault of their own. The Cork county board has built its big stadium and the finances have been a bit of a shambles. They need concerts to pay the piper. No Cork footballer brought that about and there’s no blame attached to them. They deserve better than all the bullshit that has gone on above their paygrade.

And I totally understand the need to find a cause and take a stand. When things are going against you, it’s no harm to drum up a siege mentality to narrow down your focus going into a big game. Look how well it served Donegal last week to decide that they were being victimised because the Armagh players got off their suspensions while Donegal accepted theirs.

You think that might have been mentioned in team meetings? In the dressing room? On the pitch? You can be damn sure it was. It gave Donegal that added sense of purpose. It’s not just Armagh that are against us, boys, it’s the whole of the system. Well, we’ll show them. Just watch us.

So I get it. The Cork footballers saw an opportunity to plant their flag and take on the world. But God almighty, this looks like a cause without any rebels. What’s their big victory here? Playing a championship game in Páirc Uí Rinn? Sure they don’t even like Páirc Uí Rinn themselves!

Páirc Uí Rinn is a league ground at best. And you wouldn’t exactly have called it a fortress for them in the past few years. They lost there in the league to Clare, Kildare, Donegal and Roscommon on their way down the divisions. It’s not like it’s the spiritual home of Cork football or anything like that.

That’s why this doesn’t chime in the same way as the Newbridge Or Nowhere thing from a few years ago. Generations of Kildare footballers have had St Conleth’s Park as their home. It ain’t exactly the Maracana but it’s part of the fabric of Kildare football. It was a perfect cause for the players, the management and the whole county to rally around at the time. They used the emotional energy from it to bring Mayo down. Great idea, perfectly executed.

Emotional connection

But I don’t see the Cork footballing public taking to the barricades for Páirc Uí Rinn. There’s no emotional connection there. Can you really see it being a cauldron on Saturday week? Will the Kerry lads have to deal with a bearpit? I could be wrong but I think it’s unlikely.

There’s a bigger picture here. The provincial championships are on their knees, the Munster Championship especially. Cork v Kerry is one of the great fixtures in Gaelic football. It has history and tradition and all that jazz and that’s fine. But it’s more than that too – it has a standing in people’s imaginations. It’s part of what keeps the sport strong.

Maybe I’m just a soppy traditionalist but I genuinely think that once you start playing Cork v Kerry Munster Championship matches in league grounds, you’re basically saying these are just like any old game. You’re bringing down the level of esteem attached to them. You’re saying, “Go on away there lads and get that game played, don’t be making a meal of it.”

But Cork v Kerry deserves to have a meal made of it! It should not be played in a ground that spends most of its time hosting club games. I’d have far more respect for the players if they said, “We’re not going to Killarney but we’ll play in Thurles.” Fine. At least it’s a proper championship venue.

And even if they lost that argument and had to play it in Killarney in the end, then what better fuel would they have needed? Any Cork footballer worth his salt would be going around with his chest out saying, “These bastards are making us go to Killarney again. Well, they’re in for a battle when we get there. They think we’re disposable. They think we’re nothing. We’ll show them.”

That’s the cause they should be fighting for. Showing the outside world that they’re not to be dismissed. Making it clear that they’ve had enough of everybody sneering at Cork football. That they’ve had enough of their county board ignoring them, of their supporters only showing up in their dozens, of all the hundreds of bad moves and wrong calls that have led them astray over the past decade. Fight for that.

But fighting for Páirc Uí Rinn? I don’t get it. Is that all they think they’re worth? Is that what it’s come to in Cork? Do they think so little of where they’re at that they can’t bring themselves to insist on the game going ahead in a proper championship setting?

Climbdown

Maybe worst of all for them is the fact that Kerry had to come to the rescue here. They blinked and agreed to go and play the game in Páirc Uí Rinn. They spared the Cork players the climbdown that they would have had to take to avoid huge suspensions for the county board officers and big fines that would have swallowed up all the Ed Sheeran money in the end. Kerry stepped in and saved everybody a lot of hassle.

I was disappointed that Kerry did that. I understand it – Kerry want a game and they didn’t want this dragging on to the point where Cork might have to actually go through with their threat. The worst outcome of all for Kerry would have been the game actually being abandoned and having to play the Munster final with no run-out in eight weeks since the league final. I think they should have played chicken and left it to Cork to duck out of the way first.

But Kerry didn’t want to jeopardise the fixture. Now, isn’t that an awful indictment of Cork’s chances in this match? Can you imagine Kerry and Jack O’Connor being that magnanimous about it all if they thought this was a 50/50 game? Especially after what happened last year with Tyrone, there wouldn’t have been any huge push from the Kerry public to help their close rivals out of a tight spot.

But sure isn’t that the underlying problem here? Nobody thinks they’re close rivals anymore. None of this would be an issue if Cork hadn’t fallen so far back. Graham Canty’s team would never have dreamed of playing Kerry in Páirc Uí Rinn in the Munster Championship. Not a hope.

They wouldn’t have trivialised a Cork v Kerry game like that. They wouldn’t have accepted that it had become so small-time that it could be played there. They would have had more pride in themselves.

When it comes down to it, that’s the real issue here. And it’s a bigger one than getting the game played in Páirc Uí Rinn is going to solve.