Always On My Mind

Just when you thought it was safe to start looking forward to events on the field again, it turns out that it wasn’t. Quiet moments of contemplating how well-equipped Cork are to improve for the coming year were replaced by a cacophony of noise created by events off the pitch. Again. Mario Balotelli once asked why it was always him, and down here on Leeside we know how he feels. Why is it always us? That question can be left as a rhetorical one, for the moment, though we all have our own theories as to why we seem so prone to both public and self-flagellation.

While one can understand, or, depending on the circumstances, even welcome, the schadenfreude that comes our way from without when we’re in the news for all the wrong reasons, the corporal mortification that we subject ourselves to from within perhaps lays bare some scars that may very well be beyond healing, even as the shadow of insolvency looms large over everything that we cherish.

The pyroclastic flow of vitriol, sanctimony and indignation that accompanied a story that was leaked, for a few easily imagined reasons (banning the media from meetings isn’t, perhaps, the most prudent of calls), before anything was confirmed through any official channel was incredible. Emotion took over and soon, we had descended into farce.

In a utopian world Páirc Uí Chaoimh would remain as such, just as in a utopian world we’d love to see ‘Corcaigh’ emblazoned across our jerseys, like in 1984 (the real 1984, when we used to win things, not George Orwell’s dystopian novel that continues to blur the lines between fiction and reality). Our world, though not quite dystopian – not yet anyway – is far from ideal.

Michael Foley laid bare the depths of our problems in his Sunday Times column the weekend after the story broke, but in general, we seem reluctant to address the question of why we are in such a mess. Those who facilitated the building of the stadium have long since sailed quietly into oblivion – without being questioned and without leaving so much as a minute of their meetings to enlighten us as to what actually went wrong – and left us with a colossal debt that threatens our very existence.

The deal that was finally completed this week will not pay off that eye-watering debt that continues to hamstring us, but that’s not the point. It’s another step in trying to ensure that the home of GAA in Cork doesn’t continue to accrue even more debt. It gives it a chance to stabilise and half a chance to make our home a viable one in the long term. What alternatives do we truly have? And what chance does idealism have when faced with the cold and pragmatic forces of realism?

The sale of the land in Kilbarry may well help to further reduce the crippling burden, however, that only further demonstrates other problems that are just as pertinent. Our inter-county teams have no place to call home. While most other counties click their heels in their centres of excellence, our teams’ mentors beg and borrow their way around the county at the worst possible time of year to be looking for pitches.

It is quite the pickle, because, as Kevin O’Donovan continues to point out, correctly, it is only on the pitch that we stand any chance of any type of salvation. It is only by being successful on the pitch that Cork has any chance of being successful off it. The need for success is palpable not only because of our disastrous and miserable famine, but because of our battle for relevancy, our battle for survival. What chances then?

If there is hope, it must surely lie in the hurlers, despite that Big Green Monster that casts a colossal shadow over us all. Three All-Ireland U20 titles out of four with another decent crop on the way must give us the right to hope? If not, is there any point at all? The last team to win three out of four at this grade? Kilkenny between 2003 and 2006. What followed was total hegemony. While that would be welcome, at this point in our plight to win just once would be more than enough, for now.

However, the reality is that Cork, though much improved, failed to get out of Munster last season. Nobody will know better than Pat Ryan that further incremental improvement, though welcome, will not quench the thirst of the Cork faithful if they’re not still standing at the end of the Munster Round Robin. Recent underage success has left Cork with lots of options, but at the end of his first season, Ryan was left with more questions than answers.

Perhaps what would have frustrated him most over the last few months was how often Cork were architects of their own downfall last summer. Too often individual errors and lapses in concentration cost us valuable points, but on and off the field. In a competition that is destined to come down to fine margins, again, these moments must simply be eradicated.

One would hope that the return of Mark Coleman, Robbie O’Flynn and Alan Connolly will help with that aspect of Cork’s game, as will a fully fit Tim O’Mahony and a Darragh Fitzgibbon with a full pre-season behind him. The return of these players, though welcome, will need to be supplemented by improvements elsewhere too, however. The 37-man squad that was announced this week produced no real alarms, and no real surprises. Cork has lots of good players, so do every other county. I suppose the real question is how many of them can become even better, how many of them can become great?

A league with a bit more edge than usual because of the consequences for next season should give us a better idea of where Cork is going, but it won’t be until we hit Walsh Park in April that we’ll really know where we are at. Until then we start off with a trip to the notoriously accessible Cusack Park in Ennis before we play host to our dear friends from Kilkenny in the Park by the banks of the Lee.

Let the games begin.

John Coleman