Cork boss Ephie Fitzgerald thinks positive for tactical battle
Managing a top-level ladies football team has been a breath of fresh air, according to Cork boss Ephie Fitzgerald.
Having never worked with a ladies team prior to taking the Cork senior job in January of 2016, Fitzgerald is hugely appreciative of the fact that the women’s game hasn’t been ravaged by the ultra-defensive approaches which now define inter-county football.
Even camogie has been infiltrated by sweepers and heavily-packed defences, with Kilkenny inside forward Katie Power regularly outnumbered three to one during Sunday’s All-Ireland camogie decider.
“The negativity is not there in ladies football, thankfully, and it is a real shame the men’s game has got so negative,” said Fitzgerald ahead of Sunday’s All-Ireland Ladies SFC decider, the fourth time in five years Dublin and Cork meet in the decider.
“The men’s game could be a brilliant product if teams went for it that little bit more. Since the Donegal era, teams have got so negative. Teams are going out now trying not to lose, particularly against Dublin, rather than trying to win. It beggars belief. Dublin are a phenomenon, I accept that. But you should be competitive against every other team. Cork, with a proper structure, should be competitive with more or less everybody.
The negativity that is there at present, it seems to be a copy-cat effect. If one team plays with two extra defenders, we must go with four extra defenders and so on and so on.
Fitzgerald, who managed Nemo Rangers to four consecutive Cork SFC titles in the middle of the last decade, is predicting a relatively open contest on Sunday. The positive approach of the leading counties, he added, is to be commended.
“Ladies football is end-to-end. There is so much happening, there will be so many mistakes [on Sunday]. It is real helter-skelter.
“Donegal did try to go defensive in the semi-final against us, but they, to be fair to them, probably felt that if they went toe-to-toe with us, they’d lose that battle. I would rather die trying than die wondering. We will be defensive when we don’t have the ball.
But we won’t be overly defensive in the sense of girls running back for the sake of running back. I don’t believe in that stuff. We need to go out and express ourselves. It’ll be a good game.
The Cork boss is unsure if last year’s record attendance of 46,286 will be bettered. But he’s not overly concerned about the number of bums on seats.
“If there were only 46 people there, it wouldn’t bother me, so long as we do the job. There will be throngs of Dublin people there. For Cork people to go to the camogie one weekend and then go back up again, there is a lot of expense. I hope clubs run buses and get as many up as they can.
“If would be nice if we can beat 46,000, but it would be even nicer if we can win.”
