Great to see, too, that three Cork teams have progressed to Munster club football finals

NOW, that was a positive weekend for Cork clubs on the football front as the Cork champions at senior, intermediate and junior all did the needful to progress to Munster finals on Sunday week.

Buttevant will contest the junior final against Ballymacgelligot, while Aghabullogue will face off against Kerry champions An Ghaeltacht, who have former Cork footballer and hurler Aidan Walsh in their ranks.

I have written here before that the disparity in ranking between Kerry’s intermediate and junior representatives and those from other counties undermines what are fantastic competitions.

Kerry will argue that it is their prerogative how they want to structure their competitions, which is fine, but the powers-that-be need to step in when one county is weighting contests so much in their favour. There has been some movement in Kerry to increase the number of teams at senior; I believe it is nine now where it was eight, but the gap at junior in particular is still significant. What was once a very even grade has become lop-sided in Kerry’s favour in recent years, even if Kilmurry bucked the trend in 2024.

A stipulation for a minimum number of teams at each grade to qualify could work – say, 12 – and if you dip below that number, the team from the next grade down contests the Munster championship, then I expect every county would fall into line pretty quickly. Perhaps a Buttevant team that has been in fine form can follow in Kilmurry’s footsteps, however they will have it all to do against a Ballymacgelligot team that competed in Division 1 of the Kerry league this year against Kerry giants like Austin Stacks, Dr Crokes and Kerins O’Rahillys. For context, Buttevant competed in Division 4 of the Cork county leagues this season.

The madness is just as pronounced at the intermediate grade as the tenth-ranked club team in Kerry faces off against the 25th ranked Cork side, simply because we call our secondary grade by a different name. Right being right, it would be Knocknagree facing An Ghaeltacht, while Aghabullogue would be preparing for Ballymacgelligot. First against first, second against second, third against third and so on. As ever, the GAA and logic don’t always make for comfortable bedfellows. Good luck to both Cork sides, nonetheless.

There can be no such quibbles for the senior final, as Cork kingpins the Barrs square up to An Daingean. We will preview this game further next week, but we need to look back quickly at the Cork team’s comfortable win against Éire Óg, built mainly on the back of three goals from Brian Hayes. His outstanding form with the big ball for his club has led to renewed discussion about the accommodation of dual players in Cork GAA both at club and county level.

Clearly, while difficult, it can be done in the true dual clubs, as the Barrs and Aghabullogue have shown, and Newcestown here in Carbery. That said, I’m sure there are those around Togher who believe they would have more hurling titles if so many of their best performers weren’t trying to serve two masters. The key in these clubs will usually be a reasonable level of co-operation between management teams and managing the training load of players who are playing almost every week. It can be difficult, no doubt, for the one-code operators to see some colleagues potentially excused from the harder running, however when they produce the goods like Hayes is doing, all that becomes far easier to stomach.

At inter-county level, it has become virtually impossible to do both, and Hayes’ most famous predecessor in both the red and the blue jerseys, Jimmy Barry-Murphy, certainly agrees that it can’t be done. The Cork and St. Finbarrs legend was definitive in stating ‘we’ll never see a dual player again in the inter-county scene. That’s just the way it is. I was speaking about that recently, I think it’s a pity. It won’t happen ever again’.

Cork does have some recent history with players trying to play both, with the aforementioned Walsh and Eoin Cadogan the last to try and do both at the same time under Brian Cuthbert. Others, such as Jack and Conor Cahalane, have gone from one panel to the other at different times, but trying to actively do both at once seems to be off the table now given the demands on players to do one, let alone two. That is a result of much of the evolution in training expectations and extra work like video analysis and the various workshops that panels engage in now, as well as the shortened inter-county season and the increased volume of games.

Make no mistake though, both of those are good things, and the previous elongated season with far fewer games might have made the existence of dual players more feasible, however it was plainly a negative for the vast majority who were committed to just one code. It might be unfortunate for those of us who would love to see Hayes go head to head with Joe O’Connor in a Cork football jersey next year, but the changes the GAA have made in recent years have overwhelmingly been for the greater good.

Elsewhere, Kilmacabea secured a tilt at county final redemption by seeing off Charleville in Páirc Uí Rinn last Saturday. This was a hard-fought contest and will stand to the Kilmacs ahead of a clash with a Donoughmore team that won a completely one-sided contest with Nemo Rangers’ third string outfit. Winning semi-finals by a cricket score is never ideal and the men from Leap will be glad of the gut-check from the North Cork champions.

The final is set for Sunday afternoon at 3.30pm at Páirc Ui Chaoimh and this is a great opportunity for both sides to play at one of the best venues in the country. We know Kilmacabea very well at this stage as they have had a largely settled side in recent years when they have been so successful in West Cork. There are several in their ranks who will have five West Cork junior medals at this stage, and they won’t want to pick up any more.

Kilmacabea have shown what they can do at junior grade in Carbery, it’s time to test their mettle at the higher levels.

They want the county medal now to add to their collection and to move up to premier junior for 2026. They have shown what they can do at junior grade in Carbery, it’s time to test their mettle at the higher levels.

They won't have it all their own way as Donoughmore are a fine footballing side, as we found out in the county junior league final. We had a strong side on the night and were pushed all the way to the last kick of the game – literally in this case when a late goal chance hit our post – by a balanced Donoughmore team. This will be a close contest, however if the Kilmacs can get enough quality ball into Damien Gore in the open spaces on the pristine Blackrock surface, the former Cork sharpshooter, ably supported by the likes of Ian Jennings, the Collins brothers Joe and Martin, and veterans like Donnacha McCarthy, Daniel O’Donovan and Ruairi Hourihane can make the difference on the big stage.

There have been some cracking football finals in Cork this year already, and this may well follow suit. When all is said and done, I will give the nod to our neighbours over the road to emerge triumphant. The celebrations will go long into the week if Kilmacabea can finally make amends in a competition they feel they should have won all the way back in 2018, when they lost a game against Dromtariffe that they had control of most of the way through. We wish them the best of luck.