Jack O’Shea and Shane Conway lead way for Kerry in 202050 list
football pitch. It would be difficult in a dressing room never mind in the crowds.
“If you just think about it around the dressing room you are in the shouting, the passion, the sweating at half time and full time. How do you get distance, how do you get kits cleaned, dressing room sterilised, it just seems very difficult to imagine. We will just need to wait and see.”
Being a teacher, father, husband and football manager Moynihan is experiencing this current shutdown from all sides but is still trying to find the positives within.
“Yeah, with two small kids at home and they of course are full on. Up to now we have been offering online classes and that kind of thing to the students so it is quite busy here in the morning. With a one and half-year-old and a four-year-old in your life they give you structure duty and that’s good.
From a football side the management team and myself are a rather similar age and are all doing the running with the lads as well so we are enjoying that. I suppose been part of the setup ourselves helps us stay motivated so I suppose a few of us are probably fitter than we have been in quite a while. So that is a little positive from me.”
Moynihan may well be an honorary Mallow man by now but his heart will always be on the Kingdom side of things.
“As a player you always want to play at highest level you could and test yourself and while management is a little different the same thing applies really. Of course it is coming at it from different angle.
“I moved to Mallow about ten years ago and then I made the decision to play the last few years of my football life with the club. What was heart-warming from me is that I was welcomed so warmly which committed me to the club.
“This is my fourth year managing. When you start off something like this you usually commit to two years and you don’t think that it will go on for longer but here we are. This project definitely on a few occasions last year was difficult because the panel was a little bit stretched with injuries and some fellas doing the leaving cert but once the leaving cert cleared up we a lot of younger players back on board and now we have a very young passionate group who are trying to do the best they can together – while staying apart.
“Annascaul is forever my first club but Mallow is certainly my club now and hopefully the club my sons will play for. I want this club to be a strong as it possibly can be. It’s a big town with fantastic facilities so there is no reason I can see why Mallow cant establish itself as one of the top clubs in the county.”
And the future on the line?
“Well let’s let the future look after itself but if you’re asking me would it be Cork or Kerry, you really don’t need to ask.”
Moynihan’s influence on the local GAA club has never been more evident than in recent weeks when he came up with the idea of running a charity event this coming weekend to raise funds for local charities.
Moynihan’s efforts came to fruition last weekend when players from all age groups in the town took to the roads around Mallow for what they called 19 V 19 – which saw players and management running 19km each for Covid-19.
“It’s a charity run with the main idea being that each participant taking part would run 19 km within the 5km limit safe distancing limit. The way we did it was that every member that agreed to take part got to vote on what charity they would like to donate to and that is where we came up with the three that we will donate to.
“The idea really behind this event was that the lads who have been training away all season could put some of that training to good use and to do something for the local community.
“We all know that fundraising has become really difficult for local charities with the Covid situation yet there are still a lot of people around locally with greater needs than our own. We spoke about it together and the lads were keen to give back to the community that supports them year in year out both on and off the field.
“The people of Mallow and surrounds support our fundraising efforts each year so it was nice for us to be the ones that are giving rather than taking for once.” for Moynihan
FOUR-TIME Footballer of the Year Jack O’Shea, and rising hurling star Shane Conway, lead the way for Kerry in the Irish Independent’s 202050 search for the top 20 footballers and hurlers nationally from the last 50 years.
As always with these lists and ranking, they will create more debate and division than consensus, but few Kerry supporters could argue with the selection of Jack O’Shea at No.1. The Cahersiveen man won four Footballer of the Year awards in a career than earned him seven All-Ireland SFC medals and six successive All Stars awards as the midfielder par excellence of his generation.
Colm Cooper - more familiar to the present generation - is fourth on the list, while the three Ó Sé brothers and their uncle Páidí all make the top 20.
In hurling, Shane Conway - described earlier this year by UCC manager Tom Kingston as ‘the Messi of hurling’ tops the rankings, with Kilmoyley’s Shane Brick in second spot.
Interestingly, Conway’s father, Johnny, bookends the at No.20.
On Friday the Irish Independent will name their top 20 footballers and hurlers in each of the foyr provinces, and on Saturday a national top 20 in each code will be selected list
KERRY FOOTBALL TOP 20
1. Jack O’Shea, 2. Pat Spillane, 3. Mikey Sheehy, 4. Colm Cooper, 5. John O’Keeffe, 6. Maurice Fitzgerald, 7. Séamus Moynihan, 8. Tomás Ó Sé, 9. Eoin Liston, 10. John Egan, 11. Páidí Ó Sé, 12. Darragh Ó Sé, 13. Marc Ó Sé, 14. Ger Power, 15. Seánie Walsh, 16. Declan O’Sullivan, 17. Paudie Lynch, 18. Kieran Donaghy, 19. Tommy Doyle, 20. Tom Spillane
KERRY HURLING TOP 20
1. Shane Conway, 2. Shane Brick, 3. Brendan O’Sullivan, 4. Mike Slattery, 5. Mike Casey, 6. Christy Walsh, 7. Maurice Leahy, 8. Tony Maunsell, 9. John Griffin, 10. DJ Leahy, 11. Shane Nolan, 12. Ian Brick, 13. Mike Hennessy, 14. Johnny Bunyan, 15. John Healy, 16. John Egan, 17. John Hennessy, 18. Daniel Collins, 19. Pat Moriarty, 20. Johnny Conway