AS HAPPY LARRY AS
Rebels looking for some November rain just like Tompkins’ side
JOE KAVANAGH can imagine Ronan Mccarthy invoking the spirit of 1999 tomorrow as C o r k b i d t o a c h i e v e something they haven’t managed in the years since.
Th e ra i n f e l l i n bi bl i c a l p r o p o r t i o n s i n C o r k t h a t particular summer day.
The f orecast i s suf f i ciently grim on Leeside over the next 24 hours that Kavanagh expects his old teammate to take the opportunity to draw a link to one of Mccarthy’s finest days as a player.
Ke r r y we r e t h r e e - i n - a - r o w Munster champions – League and All- Ireland champions two years before – and were hotly fancied.
Larry Tompkins was in his third season as Cork manager and needed to make something happen.
Kerry led by 2- 2 to 0- 5 at half- time but only managed two points in the second half. Cork swamped them, winning 2- 10 to 2- 4.
Maurice Fitzgerald, part of the
Kerry management team tomorrow, was the outstanding footballer of the time and Mccarthy held him scoreless.
It remains the last time Cork knocked Kerry out of the Championship.
“Back in ‘ 99 I can vividly remember Tompkins saying to us he was delighted when he looked out the window that morning and saw the black skies and the rain pouring down because he knew it was advantage Cork at that stage,” says Kavanagh ( left).
“Ronan ( right) will probably be drilling that into his guys this Sunday, that it’s advantage Cork, whether it will be or not, but I can imagine him reverting back to what was said in ‘ 99 to us and using that and tr ying to instill in them to take this advantage because it is going to be a dirty, horrible night.”
The ‘ 99 game was the penultimate knockout tie that the counties played in Munster before Covid- 19 forced this year’s Championship to be overhauled.
The bulk of Kavanagh’s career was in the knockout era, though it overlapped with the qualifiers, which took some of the edge off the counties’ provincial meetings, he feels. He was involved in 2002 when Cork beat Kerry in a Munster semi- final replay only to be destroyed by them in an All- Ireland semi- final later that summer, something that also played out in 2006, ‘ 08 and ‘ 09. “Towards the latter years you could see even the drop- off in attendances.
“It was always a great thing to go down to Killarney for a night away or a few drinks on t hat day but people were saying, ‘ I’m not getting caught in that traf f ic, we’re going to meet them again later on in the year’ because at t he t i me Cork and Kerr y were probably two of the strongest three or four teams in Ireland.
“But, as it turned out, Kerry just had the upper hand at the time in Croke Park.”
Kavanagh doesn’t believe this Cork team is ready just yet to beat Kerry and, ironically, he laments the knockout format as a run through the qualifiers would accelerate their development.
“I think we would have got through
to a ‘ Super 8s’ without probably beating anyone again but that experience would have led them right into next January/ Februar y to have a real assault on Division Two.
“I think it is two or three years ( to beat Kerry) and that’s what they’re looking at.”
Still , with ever ything on the line tomorrow, Kavanagh expects a different type of contest.
“With all respects to the Tipps and Limericks, you’re basically given 70 minutes to beat Kerry to face, more than likely, Mayo in a number of weeks’ time in an All- Ireland semi- final and that’s what the carrot is in front of them.
“I can see them going gung- ho and going toe- to- toe for 50/ 60 minutes. That’s when Kerry ’s class will show through. That’s what I ’m thinking.
“If you were sitting in the dressing room or all this week, you just have to be saying, ‘ Lads, we’ve one chance here and we could be in an All- Ireland final in four or six weeks’ time, whatever. So let everything out on that pitch’.
“And let’s just hope that’s what they do.”