Cork football manager John Cleary places Rebels’ return to Division 1 as top priority

BY SEÁN HOLLAND

WITH the Rebels’ focus firmly on the national league, Cork football boss John Cleary has only one target in mind: promotion to Division 1.

Since Cork were relegated from the top tier in 2016 they have campaigned in Division 2 for seven of the last eight years, with one season also spent in Division 3.

The goal now is to return the Rebels to Division 1, but that’s easier said than done given Cork’s upcoming Division 2 schedule – two games on the road, away to Donegal and Louth, present a challenging start.

Cork have more away games (4) than home (3), and those home matches against Cavan, Kildare and Armagh are a must-win if Cleary’s side are to achieve their goal.

Under Cleary, Cork finished fourth in Division 2 last season, behind Derry, Dublin and Louth, while reaching the All-Ireland SFC quarter-finals represented progress for Cork. Still, Castlehaven man Cleary knows the value of Division 1 football is crucial if the Rebels are to close the gap on the top counties.

‘Promotion to Division 1 is definitely a goal this season. You want Cork to be playing Division 1 football,’ Cleary told The Southern Star.

‘There are a lot of factors that will come into it. It’s a very challenging league. We have four away games this year, with two of them being at the start of the campaign. Away to Donegal and Louth, they won’t be easy. Then you have injuries to be wary of.

‘For us, it’s all about having the best possible team out there because our championship depends on it. You need to have a good league campaign to get into the Sam Maguire series. Every county will be aiming to do well in our division and it’ll be ultra-competitive from day one. We must take it week by week, game by game, and see where that gets us in the end,’ said Cleary.

With the new championship format coming on stream in 2023, and league position being key to a team’s participation in the Sam Maguire series, it places an extra importance on the league. Given Cork are potentially staring down the barrel of a trip to Killarney to face Kerry in a Munster semi-final, once the Rebels beat Limerick in a quarter-final on April 7th, it’s no surprise to learn that Cleary will be doing little in the way of experimentation in the league.

‘In an ideal world, we would be able to do a bit more experimenting but with the current situation where the league is nearly as important as the championship to us, we can’t afford to change things too much,’ Cleary explained.

‘In a funny sort of way, if we were in Division 1, you could do even more experimenting because your championship place wouldn’t be at stake. So we have to be mindful of that when picking our teams for the league.’

Looking ahead to the championship campaign, Cleary wants Cork to get back to Croke Park; in 2023 the Rebels lost their All-Ireland quarter-final to Derry at GAA HQ.

‘Hopefully, we can get back to Croke Park but we’re not looking past Limerick in Pairc Uí Chaoimh,’ the Cork manager said.

‘If we’re lucky enough to get over that, we face a trip to Killarney to play Kerry. It would be brilliant to reach Croke Park again this year. Last year on another day if we had taken our scores we would’ve been much closer to Derry, maybe even beating them. That’s the aim to try and get back there again, that’s where you want to be, at the business end of the championship and that’s what the work is going in for at the moment.

‘You’re going from league straight into the provisional championship, then straight into a round-robin series. I think last year we had about 13 games in about 16 weeks, so it’s game after game. That’s why the hard work is going on now and hopefully it will pay off in the middle of the summer.’