IS THERE A KICK IN THE REST OF LEINSTER?
Ross Munnelly’s retirement means that there is no active senior footballer outside of Dublin with a Leinster medal
IMAGINE for a second being a Donegal supporter heading out of Clones last June. Stopping for a bite or a drink en route home to further chew over a 3-17 to 0-16 All-Ireland qualifier defeat by Armagh. Looking around and seeing a familiar face on the same road home. That couldn’t be Michael Murphy, could it?
It’s a surreal image that was to foreshadow the end of an era. Perhaps sensing the finality of the result, Donegal’s All-Ireland winning captain and spiritual leader had opted not to travel back on the team bus. Instead, something deep down told him that it could be his last time leaving the senior dressing room as a player. So the feeling came over him to share the moment with his parents. Take the road home in the company of family.
As 2022 comes to a close, Murphy’s retirement – only cast in official stone last month – brings with it a feeling that an era for Donegal football is being bookended. Such is his imprint on the game.
‘I just knew, I knew that time was up,’ he recently admitted. ‘I stayed in the dressing room afterwards and was the last to leave. Very much the last to leave... I stayed and stayed and stayed. The whole decision probably was cemented there, and again you are waiting for that potential turnaround from it, but it wasn’t there.
‘In all of my days playing I would have gone home on the team bus. That day I went home with the parents and I just knew, they probably had a good idea, a good sense of me too. I would have went to Clones years ago in the same car with the same two people to watch Donegal
“I think that this year our boys are well capable .... ”
as a fan. Would have left there in tears crying many a time, disappointed. I don’t know if something came over me but I met the father outside and normally I’d give him the bag to bring home or that type of thing but that time I was bringing it home myself. I threw it in the boot and went home with him.’
Not that he’ll be gone far. As one of the new team of analysts on GAAGO with the streaming service to cover 38 Championship games in 2023, he’ll be back putting his stamp on the action — just from the other side of the camera.
What he wouldn’t entertain is the idea of Donegal entering a period of transition under new manager Paddy Carr. ‘Does transition give you grace and allow you time to build? I don’t think so. I think this year our boys are well capable. They’re in Division 1, they’re well capawho ble of competing there, they’re well capable of competing in Ulster. Yeah, there’s a famine thereafter in terms of getting to the latter stages of the All-Ireland series.’
Murphy wasn’t alone in pulling the final curtain down in 2022. One of the other most notable players to exit stage left was Ross Munnelly.
The 20 seasons he devoted to the Laois seniors showed him to be the ultimate team player. The ultimate squad player. A career that spanned a remarkable 229 appearances, 81 of those in Championship. Laois’ all-time top scorer since 2012.
‘Life begins at 40’ he said in a Twitter statement that in another way, signalled the end of an era. His departure means that there is no active player outside of Dublin has a Leinster medal. That itself says so much about how the province has turned into a Dublin fiefdom for so long.
The first years of the Leinster Championship saw one of the most equitable eras in terms of titles won, with five different teams claiming their inaugural titles between 1888 and 1895.
Compare that with now and Dublin’s record 12-in-a-row between 2011 and 2022. Take out the anomaly of Meath’s controversial title win over Louth in 2010 and it’s 17 titles in 18 years. Munnelly was just lucky enough to be around in 2003 when there was still a sense of equity about the competition. Especially when Páidí Ó Sé’s Westmeath made history by winning one against the head the following year.
Now? If 2023 is to deliver one thing, you would think that a competitive Leinster championship would be high on the GAA’s list of priorities.
After nearly two decades where the coaching and games development model was built around the needs of Dublin, that looks like a vain hope.
Other counties have been better looked after and resourced in that respect in recent years. On the field, Kildare looked like they were building something special under Glenn Ryan and his high profile management ticket. A draw against Kerry and a National League win over Dublin felt like potential milestone moments – until Dublin ruthlessly shattered the illusion in the Leinster final. A 5-17 to 1-15 rout threatened to undo all the good work of the previous months. How Kildare bounce back from that could well define the season ahead.
Then there’s the appointment of Colm O’Rourke adding spice to the mix. Here’s a player who knew what it was like to beat Dublin in Leinster during the Seán Boylan era. Just last Sunday, he wrapped up his weekend newspaper column as he puts all his focus on trying to make Meath competitive again at the business end of the season. That too, looks like a huge challenge given the pummellings Dublin have handed to them too.
And the fact that Dessie Farrell has special talents in former Footballer of the Year Jack McCaffrey and another multiple All-Ireland winner and All-Star in
Paul Mannion back on board.
The scenes of jubilation that followed Westmeath’s success in the augural Tailteann Cup – the championship’s second-tier competition – showed how the goalposts have changed for certain counties. How there is more to life than the straitjacket of provincial competition.
If Kerry have generally kept the rest of Munster down this past decade, at least Connacht and Ulster have kept the provinces relevant. That Murphy has five Ulster titles represents its own golden era. That quintet matches
“That’s where I see the group as a supporter”
the other five Donegal won over the entire history of the competition.
So no wonder he wouldn’t brook the argument that Donegal’s best chance of adding to that All-Ireland triumph of 2012 has come and gone for this generation of players, that they can’t be contenders in the All-Ireland series.
‘I think they’re well capable of going and doing it. That’s not putting pressure on them or anything. That’s just where I see it. That’s where I see the group or where I hope to see it as a supporter.’
The idea of Murphy as a plain and simple supporter is still hard to get the head around. So too, the idea that no active player outside of Dublin knows the feeling of being crowned Leinster champions.
Is there a kick in the rest of Leinster in 2023? Let’s see.