Kenny returns home with a point to prove
AFEW weeks ago, Dublin defender Jake Malone related a story about Mattie Kenny’s time in charge of Cuala to demonstrate his obsessive attention to detail.
When the Dalkey outfit played Slaughtneil in the 2017 All-Ireland semi-final at Armagh’s Athletic Grounds, Kenny had a number of back-up cars following the team bus. ‘Just in case anything happened the bus — that’s the level of detail that he brings,’ Malone recalled.
Cuala’s bus had broken down going to a challenge game a few weeks earlier and Kenny didn’t want anything to distract his team ahead of their All-Ireland semi-final. They will be dining out on stories like that about Kenny’s eccentric, and obsessive, nature around Dalkey for years.
One of the more experienced players in the squad that won two successive All-Irelands, Malone likes to tell the story of one of Kenny’s first training sessions when the manager cracked a hurl across the back of his own hand. Twice. Just to illustrate to a forward the importance of winning their own ball.
There was also the Friday evening that Kenny drove from his home in East Galway to the Nemeton TV studio on the Waterford coast, simply to source footage of Cuala’s next opponent. He then drove to Dublin to deliver it to his match analyst before heading back west.
But the eccentricity disguises an astute hurling brain. And Kenny was a man in demand over the autumn. Before he was appointed Dublin boss, it is believed that he was approached by a number of Waterford players about the possibility of taking over from Derek McGrath.
As he crosses paths with Micheál Donoghue in Pearse Stadium on Sunday, it is worth remembering that in 2015, he lost out to the All-Ireland winning boss in a bid to fill the vacant Galway post.
There is also the fact that both Kenny and Donoghue were involved in the management team for Galway’s Under21s when they won the 2005 AllIreland. And Kenny has worked with many of the Galway players during his time in Anthony Cunningham’s backroom team.
Kenny and Tom Helebert had worked with Cunningham as Galway won the All-Ireland U21 title in 2011. When he was elevated to the senior job, he took his two selectors with him. The Tribesmen shocked Kilkenny in the 2012 Leinster final and all three men appeared together for the postpress match conferunderlying ence, that it was a joint effort.
After a disastrous 2013 season, Kenny and Helebert left the management team and joined forces to run against Cunningham a year later. They failed in that bid, as did Kenny’s solo effort to get the Galway gig in 2015, but by that stage, he was burnishing his reputation with Cuala.
The south Dublin club had been considered one of the great under-achievers before Kenny appeared on the scene. He brought in former Galway player Greg Kennedy as his assistant and tailored individual strength and conditioning programmes for each of the players. In four years, he led Cuala to two All-Ireland titles, two Leinsters, three Dublin titles and two league titles.
IN a way, he was the obvious candidate to take over from the wreckage of Ger Cunningham’s reign, but he was overlooked by Dublin county board when the leftfield candidacy of Pat Gilroy appeared from nowhere. It would have been hard to ignore Kenny’s credentials for the job yet again. Last year, Gilroy deployed a sweeper. It may only be early days, but the belief is that Kenny may try to play a more expansive game. There’s plenty of talented backs in Dublin. It is possible to see a defence being built around the likes of Seán Moran, Eoghan O’Donnell and Chris Crummy while the return of Eamon Dillion further up the field will give the team more of an attacking edge. The Cuala trio of Mark Schutte, Darragh O’Connell and Sean Treacy have all returned to the fold while Conal Keaney will be back after he recovers from shoulder surgery. Kenny has been given three years by the county board to repeat the magic that he worked on the southside. Sunday offers Kenny a chance to lay down an early marker while also showing his native county what they missed out on when he was overlooked for the job.