The last time Cork tasted underage glory in football was in a pair, with 2019 the year that the Rebels were crowned All-Ireland champions at minor and U20 level.
Given that was almost six years ago, you’d expect to see a good chunk of that generation involved with the current crop of Cork seniors now. But in that time, few of those players have been able to find a place in the Cork senior squad.
Only six of members across the two winning teams present on All-Ireland final day have played league minutes in Cork’s five league games this season.
U20 All-Ireland winners Maurice Shanley, Colm O’Callaghan, Mark Cronin and Cathail O’Mahony have all featured this year – while of the minor team to beat Galway, only Ballinora’s Neil Lordan and Millstreet’s Darragh Cashman have minutes under Cleary in 2025.
Cork’s Neil Lordan clears his lines despite the pressure from Meath’s Matthew Costello in the Football League Division 2 meeting at Páirc Ui Chaoimh in Cork. Picture: Michael P Ryan/Sportsfile
The number of players involved increases to eight when you factor in the injured Seán Meehan and former minor captain Conor Corbett, but that’s still only eight players from 40 odd.
Compare that to the 2020 All-Ireland U20 Hurling Championship winning Cork side, of which 10 are now part of the current Cork senior squad and were included in the 37-man league panel.
They are Eoin Roche, Ciarán Joyce, Darragh Flynn, Tommy O’Connell, Brian Roche, Shane Barrett, Padraig Power, Alan Connolly, Jack Cahalane and Brian Hayes.
Even outside of the players named, there are a further five that have been involved with the Cork seniors in some capacity in the last three years.
Seán Twomey featured in the championship last year, while Conor O’Callaghan and Eoin Carey were involved in the league. Daire Connery and Eoin Davis were on the league panel under Kieran Kingston not so long ago too.
In football, only Lordan, O’Callaghan, Cronin, Shanley and O’Mahony have started across five games this year. Of that five, only Shanley missed the Roscommon hammering.
Then take Cork v Kilkenny – you’ve got Joyce, Barrett and Hayes all starting, while O’Connell and Cahalane came off the bench. That’s five of the 2020 U20s, without mentioning the even younger Micheál Mullins and Diarmuid Healy who starred on the day, as well as Connolly and Power, who are both out.
We can’t ignore the fact that the hurlers have been far more successful underage than their footballing counterparts over the last five or six years, but at the same time, that applies to senior too.
Just because Cork’s U20 football teams have been ‘weaker’ relative to their competition than the hurlers, doesn’t mean they should be struggling this much to make the step up to senior.
After all, the hurlers are far better than the footballers right now.
But footballers are not coming through from underage development squads the same way that they do in hurling.
Until that problem is addressed, the senior team is never going to be able to return to Division 1 level.
What the issue is, is hard to pinpoint.
There seems to be a much clearer progression pathway for the hurlers. If you deliver at U20, you’ll get a chance at senior – even if it takes time.