Cork Talking Points: A quality championship, 'freak' treble, and contender for red
It Collins Pic: ©inpho/ryan There: Bryan On Byrne Hayes Rangers Of Takes Stop Castlehaven’s Nemo Mark
It has become customary practice the morning after the concluding Sunday before to pass verdict on the championship as a whole and whether it was a thumbs up or thumbs down edition.
The 2024 Cork Premier Senior football championship scores positively, and for a variety of reasons.
The final, although the bar had been set incredibly low from 12 months earlier, was a high-quality affair that leant far more towards creativity than caution. When you think that the handbrake-up 2023 decider produced just 20 scores in total, whereas at half-time yesterday there were 15 scores on the board and only one of them a placed-ball effort. The 20-score total of last year had been reached by the 39th minute on Sunday.
Michael Hurley, Jack Cahalane, Rory Maguire, Bryan Hayes, Paul Kerrigan, and Kevin Fulignati all kicked superb points befitting the occasion. Goalkeepers Darragh Cahalane and Micheál Aodh Martin also produced saves to the same standard.
We had mentioned in previous Monday dispatches how predictable the Cork football championship had become, yet it was not suffering for this predictability. The Haven, Nemo, and the Barrs, for the third year in a row, occupied three of the four semi-final berths. The pace they are setting, though, is pulling others along after them.
Ballincollig asked a great many questions of the Barrs in the quarter-final, while Clon brought Nemo to penalties at the same stage. And who could forget the group phase being temporarily turned on its head by Mallow besting the Barrs in Grenagh?
Mallow went as far as a first semi-final in 20 years, and although disappointed with what they produced there, their conveyor belt is busy and burgeoning.
The top half of the 12-team championship is healthy and plenty competitive. For the six in the bottom half, the challenge is there for 2025 to pull back a creeping gap.
The challenge for everyone in 2025 is to pull back the not so creeping gap Castlehaven have chiselled out.
It has also become customary practice the morning after the concluding Sunday before to evaluate who, if anyone, raised their hand for involvement or greater involvement in red in 2025.
Jack Cahalane was part of matchday Cork championship panels this summer. Championship minutes he did not see, though.
Summer 2025 is a long, long way away yet, but if the youngest of the Cahalane brothers can maintain current form and an injury-free status that eluded his siblings in recent weeks, then that championship debut comes sharply into focus.
Cahalane kicked three points from play in yesterday’s final. He was fouled for two converted frees. He was fouled for a third scoreable free, but Brian Hurley opted to go short. His pace and side-step caused Nemo no end of bother.
He finished the campaign with 2-14 from play across five matches. It left him as Castlehaven’s leading scorer from play. It left him tied first with Steven Sherlock as the championship’s top-scorer from play.
It is Sherlock and Chris Óg Jones he’ll be competing against for more minutes in 2025.
Former Glanmire player Mark Hopkins guided his club to Cork intermediate A football championship glory on Saturday. Following a lot of hard work during lean times, Hopkins and his management team were instrumental in getting their side over the line after a 37-year wait.
One mentor observed before the game the most difficult part was deciding on the starting 15, such was the competition for places.
When matters didn't go their way (fell behind by seven points), they weren’t slow to make changes either.
It might have gone unnoticed county footballer Colm O’Neill from Ballyclough was part of that backroom team. Michael Cussen too.
Wayne O’Donnell, Cork hurler Kieran Murphy, Brian Lotty, Stephen Knowles and Kieran Sheehan were there as well.
So many links to the past, including their number six Darren Kenneally and number 15 Daniel Molden, who lined out in the PIFC final Glanmire lost to St Vincent’s in 2006.
Kenneally is currently a selector with the Sars Premier senior hurling team that are preparing to host Feakle or Sixmilebridge in the Munster club championship semi-final on November 17.
It’s a Sars team that will include dual stars Cathal McCarthy and Daniel Hogan.
Kilmurry's Premier Junior triumph creates an unusual treble for the Mid Cork side. For the third year in a row, they will represent Cork in the Munster JFC.
In 2022, they qualified as Junior A champions and advanced to the final, putting up a creditable battle in defeat to eventual All-Ireland champions Fossa.
Instead of progressing to intermediate, the creation of a new county-wide fifth tier saw Kilmurry compete in the inaugural Premier Junior competition. (A similar change allowed Ballygiblin two attempts at the All-Ireland JHC in 2022.) They lost the final to St Finbarr's but as that was the city side's second team, Kilmurry made it back to Munster and lost another final to Listowel Emmets.
Beating parish rivals Canovee in Friday's final not just secured long-coveted promotion to the intermediate ranks but also earns a third crack at provincial silverware.
“It’s a freak how it happened,” said manager Cormac Linehan. “We’ll attack the Munster campaign because we’re representing Cork and that’s very important to us.”
The Clare champions are first up so they will be wary of allowing eyes to stray towards a potential final against Kerry holders Firies for a cup which has never travelled outside those two counties.
The feat is actually matched in hurling where the Banner are representing Clare for a third straight season as the perennial last team standing, excluding second teams, without winning the Junior A crown. Feenagh-Kilmeedy will and St Catherine's could join them to make it three returning teams out of six from 2023.
Kieran Kingston took a breather from hurling in 2023 after a spell that saw him involved with Cork teams for the best part of a decade as manager and selector. He was also involved with Douglas, where sons Shane and Conor play.
There was only one job that could tempt him back to the sideline this year, with his home club Tracton.
Earlier this year, he told the Echo's Denis Hurley: “I think it was only my fifth or sixth year not involved in hurling since I started playing at eight years of age.
"A few teams were on to me, inside the county and outside the county, looking at different roles that I might be interested in and, to be honest, I didn’t engage with any of them to any degree.
“Then, I got a call from my home club, Tracton, from the manager down there, Patrick Murphy.
"I had worked with him before, he’s a good guy and his heart is in the right place.
“Secondly, it’s my home club and it’s very close to my heart.
“I am going to give them a hand out. I’ll be giving them a bit of help in any way I can from the spring on, from when the season starts, really.”
As well as the showpiece fixtures in the Páirc, it was a packed weekend of divisional junior finals in Cork, with several draws, and massive outpourings of jubilation in the the games that brought winners.
None more so than in Ballinspittle on Sunday, where Tracton overcame Valley Rovers to lift their first Carrigdhoun (South East) title in 37 years.
Kingston didn't play in that 1987 defeat of Kinsale. It was a measure of the club's strength back then that they became the first club to lift the divisional title with their B team.
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