BOND RECALLS SPECIAL BUNCH
Former Offaly boss hails golden generation
AS HE watched Hubert Rigney lift the Liam MacCarthy Cup that September afternoon, it never crossed Michael Bond’s mind that nearly two decades later, he would still be known as the last Offaly manager to win an All-Ireland. It’s a title he’s likely to hold for some time yet.
Bond had arrived in Offaly from across the Galway border in Loughrea, virtually unknown. He was called upon to be a firefighter, as he landed into a storm of controversy. Babs Keating had departed mid-season after his relationship with the players broke down following a Leinster final defeat. Bond let one of hurling’s most gifted bunch of players express themselves freely and it led them to a second All-Ireland in four years.
‘They were a special bunch of players. Every so often a group of players comes along together. And these lads had played with each other all the way, minor, Under 21. Birr had just won the club All-Ireland that year,’ Bond recalls.
‘And it was a simple hurling. They liked to play a fast and direct type of game, which is the game I liked to coach. They thought, as I did, that nothing moves faster than the ball. When I watch the modern game now, with all these systems, I think people have lost sight of that.’
As Bond arrived in the middle of summer, they didn’t need to focus on getting the players fit. Instead, he concentrated on sharpening the skills of the most skilful team around.
‘It was all very simple, but it was effective for that group of players. We had two-and-a-quarter hour long training sessions and we mostly worked on skills. It was almost entirely skill-based.’
‘There were eight players behind our 70-metre line and six forwards. Maybe, sometimes, when we were playing against a gale-force wind, we would bring one of our forwards back — although Johnny Pilkington always used to complain that he was the player who was asked to drop back when playing against the wind.’
The formula worked. After a controversial trilogy with Clare, Offaly found themselves in an All-Ireland final, which they won when a fluridden Brian Whelahan was redeployed as full-forward and hit 1-6.
A year later, they lost their crown after a classic semi-final with Cork. Bond is no longer close to the scene in the Faithful County but their decline saddens and perplexes him.
‘When you look at the likes of Coolderry and Kilcormac-Killoughey doing well in the club championship, it’s clear that Offaly are still producing talented hurlers. But whatever the reason, it is clearly not knitting together at county level.
‘That group that I worked with, they were a once-in-a-generation group. They all came together at the same time, and the thing is, they left the county scene at the same time too. Harking back to them probably does no good, because Offaly aren’t going to find such a talented group again. Few counties will.’
Bond is no fan of how the game of hurling has evolved but believes his Offaly team would have survived and coped with modern tactics.
‘I hear people talking now about the possession game, but hurling is, and always was, a skill-based game. The way the game is played now, with all the rucks, skill is being seen as secondary,’ the retired school principal reckons.
‘But skill will always win out. By moving the ball quick on the ground, by having a good first touch and by trusting your touch, I am sure that Offaly team would have done very well in this day.
‘To me, the best teams operate with one brain. Everyone knows what their team-mate is doing, almost instinctively.’
As a Galway native, he will be particularly interested in what happens in today’s Leinster SHC semi-final at Portlaoise. He predicts victory for the Tribesmen but is more concerned with how they will square up against Kilkenny in the final.
‘There’s a lot of talent in that Galway team, they probably have the best first touch outside of Kilkenny. But I do think that more should have been done to keep Johnny Glynn. He is going to be a massive loss as the summer goes on.
‘I know that Johnny wanted to go to New York, but there could have been some arrangement made that he come back for the summer, because he was such a weapon for the team last year, his power and direct running and he was able to bring Joe [Canning], Jason Flynn and Cathal Mannion into the game.
‘It is a shame that Galway supporters won’t get to see that this year. But all the same, I expect them to have too much for Offaly,’ he concludes.