The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Deliverance for Dr Crokes
IT took a long time - 25 years in fact - with many a twist, turn and disappointment along the way, but on St Patrick’s Day Dr Crokes finally reached the Promised Land.
A quarter century to the day after the Killarney club had won its first and only All-Ireland Club SFC title, the Class of ’92 were joined by the men of 2017, as the Andy Merrigan Cup was finally secured by a team and management that had made this prize their sole mission for years.
In the end the Kerry and Munster champions prevailed over Derry and Ulster champions, Slaughtneil, by 1-9 to 1-7 in a game that won’t be remembered as a classic or a great spectacle. And maybe that’s what will make it even more satisfying for this Dr Crokes team in years to come.
The aesthetically pleasing football this team plays is without question, and no one can doubt the skills and purity of the style of football they play, but on March 17 in Croke Park they faced a Slaughtneil team - itself full of talented footballers - that presented Crokes with one of their toughest challenges, possibly since they lost out to those great Crossmaglen teams a few years earlier.
There’s no doubt that the sending off of Padraig Cassidy on the stroke of half-time was a defining moment in the game. Dr Crokes led 1-6 to 1-5 at that stage, but as so often in games, the numerical advantage of an extra man can become an albatross around the neck of the fifteen.
It tells its own story that the second half finished up 0-3 to 0-2 in Crokes favour; Slaughtneil desperately trying to mine scores while minding the back of the house, and Crokes happy enough to play the possession game and keep the Derry men at arm’s length, especially in an admirable, if stultifying, last 10 minutes of precarious keep ball.
One only needed to see the reaction of Crokes’ goal score, Colm Cooper (who else?) at the final whistle, quite literally jumping into his manager Pat O’Shea’s arm, to see how much this journey and final destination mean to Gooch, O’Shea et al.
Cooper was emulating brothers Danny and Mark in picking up an All-Ireland Club medal. Team captain Johnny Buckley was following in father Mike’s footsteps, who was also on that 1992 team. Pat O’Shea, manager in 2017, was a starting forward 25 years ago. Eddie ‘Tatler’ O’Sullivan managed the 1992 winning team and stood with his son-in-law, O’Shea, as a selector last St Patrick’s Day.
The Andy Merrigan Cup was the missing piece of what has been a complex yet brilliantly simple jigsaw for Dr Crokes over the last decade or so.
All the necessary bits and pieces were there, from the brilliance of Shane Murphy in goal, to Gavin White’s searing runs from defence, the old warrior Ambrose O’Donovan at midfield, and the genius of Daithi Casey, Cooper and others in the attack.
In the end, however, it was a steadfast pragmatism that got them over the winning line. On that March Friday there was only the odd passage of the champagne football we’ve come to expect from this Crokes team, but when Buckley hoisted that Cup into the Dublin evening the champagne corks popped, so to speak. That is what this great team came for and that’s what this great team deserved.