When I sat down to think about Cork-Kerry, I was torn between the historic scale of this fixture and the fact that the upcoming game lit no fire inside me. Rather than being drawn towards the game, my mind was pulled towards David Clifford. What he has become. What he could become.
Clifford is the figure around whom Kerry’s All-Ireland quest revolves. By the time the championship reaches a crescendo, Cork will be a footnote. Something feels wrong about that. This is a familiar question with no satisfactory answer. What has happened to Cork football?
I had a quick scan of their National League results and a one-point win over Offaly saved them from the drop. They hit 2-17 against Galway but conceded 3-22. It all adds up to a 0-16 scoring average and 19.8 points conceded in Division Two. In the context of this weekend, facing the National League champions in Division One who have racked up a serious aggregate score with their talisman running riot does not bode well.
I think it is important to try and frame this in the context of the national picture. Look at the Ulster semi-finals. Cavan are the outsiders among the four remaining teams. But they contested two of the last three Ulster finals and were champions in 2020.
In Leinster, Dublin are beginning to re-assemble the monster. Kildare are on the way up. Westmeath is the outlier of the four semi-finalists. In Connacht, Roscommon and Galway are strong. But in Munster, there is nothing there. It is Kerry – and the rest. How can you have a ‘championship’ if there is a non-competitive final?
In 2019, the Cork county board unveiled an ambitious five-year plan and involved significant figures like Conor Counihan, Graham Canty and Brian Cuthbert. The instant return of minor and under-20 All-Ireland titles seemed to confirm the latent talent within the county. But even allowing for Covid, the good intentions have had no impact on Cork’s showpiece, the senior football team. Maybe everyone involved needs to ask if the plan is working. Does it go far enough?
I still see Cork as an incomplete project at this stage. They have 542 ,000 people and the number of GAA clubs in Cork is 259 –146 of those football. The population in Kerry is 147,000 and they have 64 GAA clubs. Irrespective of the love of hurling in Cork, they should be able to put together a foundation to compete with Kerry. There was a tweet in 2010 after Cork won the All-Ireland and it read: there were wild celebrations in Kerry too when we won our seventh All-Ireland . . . in 1926.
Plan
I remember thinking it was amusing but it also let you know that Cork were getting under the Kerry skin a little bit. That tweet was reminding them of the pecking order.
Cork have a perfect city and country divide. There is money there. So what is the problem? perhaps all the interested parties need to sit back down in a room, close the door and then start to chart the demise of Kerry football. That is what they need to do. Because they have the raw materials to do that. I am talking about an in-depth plan to attack all of their advantages, one by one, year by year.
They have an enormous capacity to attack the primary school, secondary school and club sectors in Cork and create a system of talent. And the model is there to do that. It is called Dublin.
I am more of a fan of the small county trying to over-achieve than big counties dominating. But the GAA needs four competitive local theatres and Kerry should not get a free pass to the quarter-final ever year. There is no threat to Kerry right now.
Kerry would prefer a decent, tough game on Saturday evening. But they don’t want to face a red revolution. The current status, with Cork drifting aimlessly from season to season, suits them just fine.
It will not be a quick fix. It requires a very detailed plan and also a plan to source the money to implement it and someone taking responsibility for each area from primary school through to high performance – and, finally, a clear thread linking each.
That cannot be happening now, based on what we are seeing. Cork escaped another year in Division Three by the skin of their teeth. That’s unacceptable for such a big football county.
And that is the gloomy backdrop to this game. Will the public show up? How bad or ugly could this get for Cork? It doesn’t promise much as a contest. Why go? And that is how I got to thinking about Clifford.
Attention
His development as a man and as a footballer has acquired a different dimension this year in his performances in both the colleges and league competitions. The attention he will get this summer will be claustrophobic and punishing.
Something happened during his exhibition against Mayo in the league final. All caveats aside, it was breathtaking. Everybody I have spoken to since that game holds Clifford in a different light now. Everyone knew he was a phenomenal player before that game. But he moved into a different realm over that hour.
Yes, he will rarely be given that kind of freedom of expression again. But I believe he has struck the fear of God into the defensive collective with his speed, skill, physical power, his two-foot kicking.
The expectation level on his shoulders is immense. How is he going to lead this team? Those questions give the championship a real narrative
For me, his unique strength is the power dribble he uses to propel himself and he uses the torque and spin of the ball to gain traction away from the defender. And the other separating quality is the speed of his kick. And in the midst of all that, he is operating at a sublime level of composure. It communicates the message: I am here, its where I belong. And that winning All-Irelands is part of his destiny. It is almost a sense of entitlement.
Now, he hasn’t fulfilled that yet. The expectation level on his shoulders is immense. How is he going to lead this team? Those questions give the championship a real narrative.
And for all the hype, Kerry has not got over the line since Clifford materialised. There is a sense that Kerry need to deliver a title soon. At the end of the day, it takes a team to win it. Kerry 2022 are hugely dynamic and they have put a big emphasis into strength and conditioning. They have three scorers and three workers up front, they have O’Connor and Barry at midfield with Moran on the way back.
The defence has taken a huge step forward in terms of containing other teams. But we won’t know how deep that defence is until they meet the top tier teams in the championship.
And the underlying nightmare scenario for Kerry is this. What if something happens to Clifford over the summer? As happened against Tyrone last summer. Their path to the Sam Maguire seems to look more treacherous now than it did a few weeks ago.
Dublin showed a ruthlessness against Wexford and Dessie Farrell used the word 'humbling' in describing their relegation from Division One. It is clear that the Dubs had to look deep inside themselves. That can be a very liberating thing.
Kerry are carrying no hurt. They are carrying, rather, a great expectation. They cruised to the league, they have the game’s superstar. But they haven’t had the test yet. They’ve had no moment of adversity.
Also when big questions have been asked of the Kerry kick-out, it reverts to a long and predictable restart– which is what opposition teams want. If they get that right, it is a big feather in Jack O’Connor’s hat.
Is there another team or coach who could outsmart them? I think possibly, yes; several in Ulster. Galway are a dark horse and they share with Kerry an innate sense of entitlement and they are also starting to go well. Do not write Mayo off. That is a lot of teams out there still. It is not clear-cut.
But on Saturday all things point to Kerry running through the gears. Cork might hit 0-14 and Kerry up around 1-18. I hope I’m wrong, but it could be much worse than that. We don’t know if Cork will go ultra-defensive and try and keep it tight and dour and go down fighting. There are very few positives and it is going to be a slow road back for Cork.
How long would it take to get this notional plan together? In my head, a year or two. And then you begin to put it in place. It may take six or seven years before there is any sign of forward momentum. But it’s a necessary pain which Cork football must absorb. If they start now, they might just catch Kerry out in what has become the David Clifford era.
