Nemo need to strike back again

ALTHOUGH SUNDAY’S Munster club football final is tightly balanced there is a considerable disparity in the championship achievements of Nemo Rangersand Dr Crokes. The Cork side sit on top of the All-Ireland roll of honour with seven titles whereas the Killarney club have just one.

Nemo also boast a living tradition with players like Brian and Alan Morgan, sons of former club and Cork goalkeeper and manager Billy, as well as his nephews William and Peter. Jimmy Kerrigan’s son Paul also lines out, having helped take home the Sam Maguire three months ago.

History counts for only so much, however, and if anything the club have struggled to deliver on the national stage to the extent they used to. Until recently they had lost just once in the provincial championship, the 1977 final against a powerful Thomond College.

Two further setbacks in the past few years, including one to Sunday’s opponents, have shaken the confidence a little and whereas they had sustained just one defeat in an All-Ireland (1975 against another third-level college, UCD) final up to 10 years ago the past decade has seen three lost from four appearances.

“I suppose there’s a number of reasons why the club’s record at All-Ireland level hasn’t been as strong in recent years,” says Ephie Fitzgerald, who in 2007 coached the most recent side from the club to win Munster.

“The championship itself is better organised and structured – I remember playing an All-Ireland semi-final and final on the same weekend – but it’s also possible that Nemo had better teams in the past.

“Although the club has such a great record at All-Ireland level the first objective any year is to win the county and that’s a demanding task in Cork. The club championship is a bit unbalanced.

“In Cork it takes five mostly competitive matches to win the championship and you don’t have the opportunity to win 12 or 13 titles in the way Crossmaglen have managed in Armagh. In that sense it’s not a level playing field.”

In a way the club has been unlucky with narrow defeats and Fitzgerald believes that comparisons with the exceptional track record of the club in the first three decades of the club championship are a bit unfair given the lethal economy with which All-Irelands were formerly accumulated.

“The strike rate used to be phenomenal. I won five county championships and four All-Irelands. We’ve only ever been beaten in Munster by Thomond College back in the 1970s, the year before they won the All-Ireland, and more recently by Dr Crokes and Drom-Broadford. That’s three defeats in something like 18 or 19 attempts.

“If you look back at the last 10 years we’ve won seven county titles and five Munster, been to four All-Ireland finals and lost three, two by a point and won in 2003. We also lost a semi-final by a point so it’s been a fine line between getting over the line and not getting over the line.”