Martin is using his past to shape Offaly’s future
KEVIN MARTIN would love to play the part of earnest student to the teacher in Brian Cody and further his hurling education. Just sit down and try and unlock a few secrets to the game, courtesy of someone who has patrolled the sideline through 11 All-Irelands. They meet on the sideline at O’Connor Park this afternoon for a League quarterfinal, a world removed from a previous meeting that still sticks with Martin from his playing days with Offaly, around the turn of the millennium.
‘It’s gas, one of my memories of playing with Offaly against Kilkenny, I went up to the stand after at Croke Park. Cody was training them. He came in up to the bar after, was just chatting to him for a second. Now I’m on the line and he’s still on the line.’
He thinks it might have been the 2000 Leinster final, a time Cody was still trying to break his All-Ireland duck in what was his second season in charge.
That he is still there makes him a once-off in Martin’s eyes. ‘I don’t think it will happen again, anyway. It goes to show what the man is made of. He has been absolutely unbelievable for Kilkenny. I’d love to sit down with him for a couple of hours one of the days and see could I learn, pick up a few bits and pieces from him. He’s after being through it all. It’s unreal. You have to admire him.’
They did cross paths in mid-January in more low-key circumstances than this afternoon’s encounter. ‘For the Walsh Cup [semi-final], I shook his hand and welcomed him to O’Connor Park.’
But Martin also lived through the days when Offaly had the measure of Kilkenny.
It isn’t lost on him that it’s 20 years now since the summer of 1998 when Offaly delivered an All Ireland title like no other. Babs Keating and the ‘sheep in a heap’ criticism of his own players after an off-colour Leinster final defeat by Kilkenny that prompted a dressing room coup. Michael Bond, the Galway school principal who took charge and conducted a stunning All-Ireland symphony, though most of the players wouldn’t have been able to pick him out of a line-up. The sit-down protest by supporters after Jimmy Cooney blew up early against Clare. The epic sweep of the three-legged semi-final.
Then the coup de grâce: turning the tables on Kilkenny to become the first ‘back door’ champions, inspired by a sick Brian Whelahan who cemented his Team of the Millennium status by scoring 1-6 from full-forward in a tactical masterstroke after struggling early on at wing-back.
Martin laughs as he explains why it was a milestone year from a personal point of view. ‘That was a mad year for me because I actually got married that year as well. On June 6. In the middle of the whole lot! I remember we played a Leinster semi-final
20 It’s 20 years since Kevin Martin starred as Offaly beat Kilkenny to win the 1998 All Ireland.
against Wexford and I had to postpone the honeymoon, put it back a week.
‘We were heading to Greece. Ended up going down to a hotel in Kerry for a week the week of the game, then I was gone. So ended up getting three weeks honeymoon rather than two so it was grand! Back for the Kilkenny game. So I’d a great time!
‘I remember going into training after Babs was gone. Into the dressing room at O’Connor Park. We always nearly sit in the same spot and Michael Bond was in my corner — I didn’t know who he was at the time. I remember togging out beside him and didn’t know what to say.’
Looking back now, it seems truly remarkable that Offaly could reinvent themselves mid-season given all the drama. ‘When that sort of stuff filters in to a squad, it can affect preparations. But it obviously drove us on. You’d think if that was to happen today with my squad, you’d think “Jesus the whole thing is going to fall apart.”
‘It depends on what type of squad you have. We had serious characters in our squad at the time ie Johnny Pilkington.’
Serious hurlers too, the effervescent Pilkington just one of them. If Whelahan was the stylist supreme on one side of the half-back line, Martin was the perfect foil on the other: fit, strong, aggressive, ferociously competitive — a born leader who also played such an important part in the double All Ireland success of 1994 and ’98. The kind of player with a natural engine under the hood who would be just as comfortable in the modern game.
Just like Whelahan, his reputation made him a stand-up choice to try and stoke the embers of an Offaly renaissance as manager.
For one Saturday evening in late January, it looked like things had caught fire. A first League win at Croke Park since 1991 and the first victory of any kind at the venue since 2005 — skewering Pat Gilroy’s Dublin by 225 to 1-15 in the process — had the county dreaming again, at least until Limerick delivered a dose of reality the following Sunday by an even bigger margin, 1-24 to 0-10.
‘While Dublin had an understrength team out, we performed very well and put them away the way we should have. I was very, very happy. So were the lads.,’ he says.
With a seven-day turnaround for the Limerick game, it was always going to be very hard to bring them down because they were getting pats on the back going around the county. After that game, it was like after winning a Leinster final.
‘There is great goodwill in the county. People do want Offaly back,’ continues Martin.
‘In fairness to the players, they want to be back there as well. They’re showing that on the training ground, really training hard. That was a breath of fresh air for the whole county, even if it was short-lived — only seven days!
‘The one thing for me, we were five points down at half-time, after missing a penalty and a couple of scores. It could have been level if we had taken our chances. Seven minutes in to the second half we had a man sent off – it was curtains then. They just put us to the sword.’
The return to the spiritual home of Birr last weekend didn’t quite have the desired effect, just being squeezed out by Antrim, which shows the road that still needs to be travelled in terms of catching up with the likes of Kilkenny. ‘Kilkenny are still up around the Tipperarys and Galways. They’re after finding new players and have Richie Hogan, Colin Fennelly and Paul Murphy to come back. Anyone that writes off Kilkenny, you write them off at your peril. Okay so they might be going through a bit of a lull, trying to gel lads in, but they’re coming together again.
‘There is no point us trying to play sweepers. We have to get the bite back in to Offaly hurling. It’s starting to come into it. I’ll be telling the boys to have a go at them. Nobody is expecting us to win the game. Just let loose. See what happens. If they bring intensity, toughness, that controlled aggression… we have hurlers as well don’t forget.
‘It’s a confidence-building thing for the guys. They’ve been down for so long. We’re still way down the pecking order as regards top teams. It’s games like this that will bring us on.’
The chat with Cody will have to wait for another day.