It's not Kerry, so Cork have nothing to fear

ALL-IRELAND SFC FINAL:The uncomfortable fact is that Cork have always struggled to stamp their authority on the football world, despite plenty of opportunities

WHY IS everything so hard for Cork footballers? In GAA history, the county’s hurlers became renowned for being able to come from nowhere to win an All-Ireland. For the footballers it’s often been the reverse – always there, hanging around, but rarely winning.

There may be relief among supporters

that another mind-bending encounter with Kerry doesn’t await this Sunday, but the uncomfortable fact is Cork have always struggled to stamp their authority on the football world, despite plenty of opportunities.

This weekend, Down become the 11th county to face Cork in an All-Ireland football final, and yet the Munster county’s record is in credit with only three of those opponents: Antrim (1911), Cavan (1945) and Mayo (1989). Antrim and Mayo were surprise All-Ireland finalists, whereas Cavan were just in between dominant phases in the county’s history.

Overall, Cork’s hit rate in finals is around a modest one-in-three (six from 17). Most of what the county has achieved in football has come at the end of long, hard roads.

Since completing the double in 1990, Cork have been to and lost four All-Ireland finals, and even if the 1993 and ’99 championships are of little relevance to the current team, the county isn’t finding the seventh title any easier to come by than, on average, the other six.

It all reflects an awkwardness about their place in the world. Although their football profile is sufficiently high to rank the county as a power in the game, Cork football struggles for status – not least within its own boundaries.

When the hurlers are going well they bring out massive crowds, but the football box office is less busy even when things are thriving.

It’s almost as if Cork people resent having to make do with football success – methadone instead of a real hit.

There are loyal followers, but just not in the same numbers as when the hurlers are on the move. The typical Cork hurling perception, cocky and capable of doing a number on anyone, is a distant relation of the more introspective big-ball personality, which appears to settle on senior teams after the relative ebullience of under-age football.

Yet, there is obviously a passion about the game in its strongholds that almost thrives on being the underdog, a community under siege from the forces of indifference.

Where else would an All-Ireland captain speak as ambivalently about his team’s place in the public affection as Derek Kavanagh did in September, 2007?

“I don’t think it bothers us any more. We’re just a close-knit bunch and we’re well used to walking out into a half-empty stadium. It doesn’t bother us; we’re playing for ourselves. It might sound selfish, but we’re not trying to play for the supporters. We’re playing for ourselves and we want to win for ourselves. Simple as that.”

The second context of embattlement is the province of Munster and the constant comparisons with the game’s outstanding force. During over a century of the old, knock-out format, Kerry was necessarily the only reference point for Cork.

When Mick O’Dwyer’s team cut a swathe through football, it is well recorded that Cork bristled at the constant, patronising reminders that they were “the second-best team in the country”, but unfortunate to be trapped in the same province as the best.

The Billy Morgan revolution rectified that and turned Cork into perennial contenders, who gave Kerry their roughest spell in the province between the late 1980s and mid-1990s, winning seven out of nine titles.

Yet, in a corrosive irony, the advent of the qualifiers and the flinging open of the provincial prisons have led only to Cork presumably pining for the old days when a team killed in Munster stayed dead.

For five straight years, between three All-Ireland semi-finals and two finals, they have seen their colours lowered by the neighbours as surely in Croke Park as they ever were in Cork or Killarney.

Since the format was introduced nine long seasons ago, only four counties have ended Cork’s summer – Galway, Roscommon and Fermanagh, once each, and Kerry six times.

The questioning of the team’s bottle is an old pre-occupation. After successive defeats in finals by Meath, the second of which came in the chastening circumstances of having a one-man advantage for virtually the entirety of the replay, and before defiantly winning back-to-back All-Irelands, the team had to answer the same sort of questions that its modern successors must.

What have you learned from the defeats? How difficult is it to recover from losing a final? Is it a relief that Kerry aren’t there?

For the first time in eight years the All-Ireland will be won by a county that is not Kerry or Tyrone. Cork have been contenders for most of that period. Their fate against Kerry is known, but on the only occasion they were asked to play the other outstanding team in the game, Tyrone, they won comfortably last year.

There is no particular reason, in other words, for Cork to be considered unreliable in the face of any opposition other than Kerry, which for the past decade has been fielding outstanding teams and picking up five All-Irelands.

Interestingly, Cork don’t appear to suffer from the same inhibitions as Kerry when it comes to playing Ulster counties. By this stage, the latter have played 10 finals against northern opposition and have returned only a 40 per cent success rate. From more limited exposure – three finals – Cork are 66 per cent.

Even in recent years since the new system has been introduced Kerry have faced Ulster opposition eight times in the All-Ireland stages, from quarter-finals up, and have lost five, whereas Cork are three from three.

It’s been a strange aspect of the football- hurling relationship in Cork that the county hardly ever enjoys ascendancy in both codes at once. In the past 40 years the county has won 35 provincial titles between the two games, but completed the double on only four occasions. One ebbs and the other flows.

At present, for all the criticism thrown at the footballers, there’s no doubt who’s flowing. Wing back Noel O’Leary expressed as much at last week’s media conference.

“Hurling is probably the number one game here in Cork, but the cycle is coming around again and football is getting that bit stronger again, and if we could finish this off it would be really good for the county.”