An Ciarrai

And Cork are not a good team indeed, whilst the Kerry lads are a couple of years away from

Dublin, but will be the one's.

Dubs vs Kerry would be an ideal final lineup based on what I have seen so far this year .  Not sure what way draw works out , but hope it happens .

What has gone so wrong with Cork football - it seems to have crumbled away to nothing in a relatively short time.

Cork people are more interested in hurling than football generally .  Given the way football has gone recently I have sympathy with that view , but the effort in being a "dual purpose GAA county" at top level is hard to sustain . And asking players to play football and hurling at top level just does not compute these days .  In olden days many of Cork's best footballers and hurlers were "dual purpose" , don't think many could do that now .

Kerry made Cork look very pedestrian after a swift Cork start , but I suspect Kerry would have had the same effect on all current teams , Dublin excepted .

Vubiant , you could ask what has gone wrong with Down football in the last 20 years , there is no easy answer . The amazing thing about Kerry is where do they get so many good footballers from a county with a population comparable to  one small Dublin suburb .

Or Meath football .

Kelly -I appreciate the point you make about hurling being more dominant in Cork. However as far as I know -hurling is mainly present in the city ,east and north of the county. From the western suburbs all the way to Castletownbeare it's all football -or used to be.
West Cork and Kerry are basically a continuum -why should  there be a wealth of talent on one side and a dearth on the other ? Is it to do with the schools , the coaching  -or competition from other sports ? Rugby might be making some inroads ( and even rowing around Skibbereen ? )
Cork used to be able to muster a team that could at least be competitive against Kerry but now the contests are an embarrassing mismatch.
Leinster and Munster are now one horse races , Connacht is more or less Mayo and Galway  and Ulster is Tyrone and Donegal with an odd thrust from Monaghan.
The All-Ireland SFC is now effectively a 6 team competition -if that! Strange how it's worked out.

Vubiant , not familiar with the set up in Cork , so can only offer generalities based on personal experience . From my own county , Down,  any time we managed to get a good potential winning county team  it was usually the result of a 5-10 year build up . That involved the elements you mention , viz schools initially , good under age set up using experienced selectors and sympathetic management of young players , and support from county board when needed . Competition from other sports was not a big factor up north here , not certainly in the past , but might be changed now .Cuts both ways that now , my wifes grand nephew is excellent at soccer and gaelic , representationally . But on one occasion last year his ( top locally ) soccer club had to postpone a fixture because nearly half their players were playing a gaelic match that evening .

We reckoned if we advanced 2 players per year from under 16 through to being an effective senior county player the future was fairly secure .  Occasionally in the good years ( generally following  successful minor campaigns as in 1986 and 1987) you got 4 or 5 together and that made it easier for those to integrate with the more experienced hands . You need a supply of fresh blood on tap , concentrates the mind .

Not involved myself with any coaching , but I do have reservations about some of the procedures I hear about now . One very successful underage club team ( Ulster champions)  I am familiar with - 2 of my grand children play on it- are expected to turn up 45 minutes before each match for training/ warm up / whatever . Overkill I reckon , particularly as county and development squads also want their pound of flesh from those players . When I was 16 / 17 my main interest was in playing and developing skills , not about being super fit and being able to run forever around cones .

Have gut feeling the schools may be the most important factor . Certainly nearly all our best teams had huge input developmentally from school and (increasingly recently) university influences.

Talent does not grow on trees though , reckon our players currently are not at the standard needed to make an impact at championship level .  Tyrone have a huge investment in developing players from grass roots upwards , but they have run out of game winners  , maybe its all cyclical .

It takes a lot longer to coach hurling.

Often it has not been flavour of the month.

Cork has as stated been a very strong dual player county more so than any other.

It's a combination of many factors but one that needs more investment in different forms.

Hurling is facing a boom and it will become the dominant force in Cork once again, as is it's

tradition i believe.

Hurling may not have the gate receipts yet but does have the global capacity throwball hasn't.

Schools are vital and the talent pool of good coaches MUST be present from an early age.

Having structures and plans, objectives, understanding preparation mental awareness

Ok i bet not get started.......

best*