The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
The Nire stand in way of Dr Crokes’ return to Munster glory
COLM Cooper is back in a Munster SFC club final with Dr Crokes this weekend against The Nire of Waterford. If they overcome that hurdle, he hopes to finally emulate his brothers Danny and Mark who won a All-Ireland Club Championship with the Killarney club.
First and foremost, Cooper wants to get his hands on the Andy Merrigan Cup for the club’s sake, and then filling the complete set of medals available to him would underline a magnificent playing career - for club and county.
Beyond this latest Club Championship campaign with Crokes, the stylish forward still hasn’t decided if he will continue on with the Kingdom next season and will wait to see what his hunger levels are after the club journey ends.
“Look, I’ve been very open and honest about this for years. It’s a medal that I’d love to win. I’ve two brothers who have won it; people in the club have won it. It’s a competition I hold very close to my heart and it’s the ultimate for any club player,” Cooper says.
“If you were talking to the guys from Slaughtneil, Corofin and Brigid’s, they’ve all been there before and some of them have got over the finishing line and others haven’t. They’re having the same problems as us and we’re all dreaming of the same goal, to be there on St Patrick’s Day. But there’s a few hurdles to jump before then. We’re all dreaming of that but you can’t look too far down the line.
“It would be fairly foolish for us as a mature team to think anything beyond Sunday. I’ve been around too long for that. We won’t be taking anything for granted.”
“With Kerry, we are always knocking around in August. Traditionally, we are always there or thereabouts. So you always think you will be in the mix again. With the club, you don’t know. We won four county finals in a row, we thought we were going to win five or six. We didn’t. We lost a couple and won two in a row again. The way we have to look at it is that we won’t be back at this stage again.”
Speaking of being back on the stage again, what does the future hold for Cooper and the fames green and gold jersey?
“I think because the Crokes thing has been so busy and all my energies have gone into that, I just want to see how the year finishes out and see how I’m feeling about everything. We’ll make the right decision then.
“If the hunger is there to go again, if the body comes through unscathed in the next few weeks, they’re the main things. I think if those things are good and strong then they’ll be pointing in the direction of coming back.
“The commitment now is drastically different to when I started. It’s a huge time commitment, you’re putting your life on hold, everything goes into preparing your body. When you’re over 30 and you’ve had a few injuries as well, you need to give it a little bit more thought.
“I’m getting to be the oldest one now. I suppose when (team mates retire) you’re saying ‘Jesus, is my time coming to an end as well’ because when you soldiered on so long with people it’s changed a lot. But that won’t have a big say in what I decide because I think you have to judge it on an individual basis.
“We always say in Kerry, you get the geansai for a while, you hold onto it as long as you can and then you pass it onto somebody else. That’s why I talked about trying to win as much as you can while you have it. That’s the big thing.
“Kerry football was fine before Marc O Sé or Colm Cooper or any of those guys came along and it’ll certainly be fine after it. We never think that football will stop because we’re not playing, that’s never the way it is and there’s exciting young players coming through now.
“That’s the way it should be. There’s a little bit of a changing of the guard at the moment but that’ll work for the good as well hopefully.”
Having been at the coalface of so many All-Ireland Championship campaigns and then going straight into club football for endless winters, Cooper is better positioned than most to offer a view of the much maligned and oft-debated ‘club versus county’ debate.
The 33-year-old would like to see the club season run off inside the calendar year and feels that county managers have too much power. He doesn’t see any quick solutions to the club-county divide.
“I think there’s frustration certainly from the club people, because they don’t know when they’re going to be playing and they don’t know when their championship is going to commence again after the summer,” he says.
“And then they don’t know when they’re going to have access to all their players. So that’s difficult for club managers to plan and they probably feel that, look, the club is what the GAA is all about, that’s what it’s built on, and we’re not getting a fair hearing here in many cases.
“So maybe that’s where the frustration of the club manager comes from. But there’s two spectrums and I’ve been lucky to see both sides of it. When you’re with the county, you want tunnel vision on trying to achieve getting to Croke Park and winning an All-Ireland with Kerry.
“And that’s the Kerry manager’s job. His job isn’t to facilitate the club structure. And the same, the club manager is only worried about his club team trying to win a county championship.
“So everyone has their own priorities but, at the moment, it’s creating tension and frustration and from what I’m hearing, I don’t think we’re going to see a solution any time very soon.”
A suggestion often trotted out is that county players will stick exclusively to that arena, and let the clubs push on without them.
“Well, that’s where it would go if it went any bit professional,” Cooper says. “I’d say if I was playing with Kerry and Kerry were in charge of my contract and paying me, I wouldn’t get to play with Dr Crokes too often.
“It’s a little bit like the rugby – they don’t play with their club, they play with their provinces now and the country. So, I don’t think that’s going to change unless anything goes professional, and I don’t see that coming in the short or medium term.
“Look, the club structure is what makes players. It’s the first place you put on your boots and it’s the last place you probably put on your boots. That’s where you get spotted to play the high level with your county.
“So, the club is so important to people… we were just talking already with the lads about families keeping it going, generations of players coming through, it’s the heartbeat, it’s people in the club making sandwiches for teams after.
“It’s what the GAA is all about, and the best things in the GAA are from the club structure, so I don’t think that should ever be threatened in any way. Look, it’s one of the best characteristics of what we have in the GAA and I think we should be safeguarding it, to be honest.”