THE GAME IN 60 SECONDS No sacred cows

Paul Brennan says what sets this Dr Crokes squad apart is that no player is bigger or more important than the panel ethos Pat O’Shea has instilled

MAIN MAN

Johnny Buckley got the award from TG4 and truth be told the broadcaster could have hooked any number of Crokes players at the end. On a day when the midfielders and forwards kicked scores for fun the Crokes wing back, David O’Leary and Shane Doolan defended excellently in extremely testing conditions. O’LEARY, in particular, was brilliant and was somewhat of an unsung hero in the defence.

KEY MOMENT

None really to speak of given Crokes total dominance, but the Barrs goal in the 21st minute closed the gap to three points just after the home side had kicked their seventh point on the spin. Within two minutes Crokes had responded with a goal and point and led by 11 at half time.

TALKING POINT

They mightn’t necessarily want such talk but Crokes are surely favourites now, along with Corofin, to win the All-Ireland title. Winning provincial semifinals by 21 points will invite such chatter, but they can handle it.

IS there another senior club team in the country that could or would leave a fit Colm Cooper out of its starting fifteen? Would many clubs, even those capable of winning their county championship, be in an position to leave an in-form Jordan Kiely out of the team? Or how many top ranking club sides would have a place in their first team for a now 38-year old but still useful Eoin Brosnan?

No, very few, and plenty, would be our guess at the answers to the three questions posed, and yet Cooper, Kiely and Brosnan have had to be content (or not) with being named among the Dr Crokes substitutes for most of the county championship just gone and now on into a Munster Championship. It’s at once a lovely and invidious position for the Crokes management to be in: to have such a well of talent at their disposal, but only be able to draw on so much of it at the one time.

Cooper is, perhaps, the most unlucky of them all. A starter for Crokes first two county championship matches in September, he was forced to sit out the Round 3 win over An Ghaeltacht due to a bout of illness and he hasn’t been able to regain his place since. We go back to the first question above and wonder again what other club, if any, wouldn’t have Cooper back in their starting team the moment he’d be passed fit and ready?

Of course, the very day Cooper missed out due to that illness was the day Tony Brosnan came into the starting team and scored 1-14 (1-10 from play) against An Ghaeltacht. Not so easy drop a player like that the next game out. Around Brosnan there is the old reliables of Kieran O’Leary and Brian Looney and Gavin O’Shea, with the younger, but no less talented or effective Micheál Burns and David Shaw completing the attacking unit. As Crokes inexorable march toward another county title and almost certainly a Munster title one of the greatest footballers of his or any generation finds himself, if not quite surplus to requirements, then certainly frozen out of the first team considerations. For now at least.

There’s no doubt but Gooch will be frustrated if not quite angry at where he finds himself right now.