Young guns worthy of sweeping statements

WE must admit, we do like our grand sweeping statements in the media.

Tyrone beat Kerry in the 2008 All Ireland final and so we rush to declare Tyrone the team of the decade. Planting Sam Maguire down in front of them when they came into the media room in Croke Park, Tyrone’s players were in no mood to disagree.

And yet just twelve months later we were at it again. Kerry champions in 2000, 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2009. Five titles in ten years, the definition surely of team of the decade? And so the front page of

newspaper on the third week of September carried the headline “Team of the Decade” and, no, it wasn’t Tyrone they were talking about.

Were we right in 2008? Or were we right in 2009? Does it even matter? We don’t recall anybody making any such fuss about the team of the decade before then or since. Which team was the team of the 90s? Which team was the team of the 80s?

Nobody asked, nobody told, nobody cared. It filled a need at that time, fuelled by a particular set of circumstances, a very particular rivalry. A rivalry that hasn’t yet been matched in this decade. It’s simply what we in the media do, construct a narrative as best we can.

In other words find a story to tell or rather find a way of telling a story as best we can. If that’s sometimes grandiose, then so be it. If a young a player impresses on his debut don’t be at all surprised to find us writing about the birth of a star.

If two young players impress on their debuts – one for each team – in the same match, don’t be at all surprised to find us writing and talking about the emergence of a new generation in excited terms.

This is manna from heaven for us lads sitting down of a Sunday evening in front of our laptops, blinking cursor staring right back at us. So forgive us if we use the emergence of Austin Gleeson and Alan Cadogan in the Munster hurling championship to start throwing around words like “box-office” and “Hollywood”. No pressure lads.

They’re exciting, they’re fresh faced (behind the face guard of their helmets they are anyway), they’re clearly absolutely sensational hurlers. Like we say... no pressure. There was a fearlessness to the way they went about their business in Semple, the type of fearlessness and exuberance only youth can bring.

From the moment we saw Cadogan under the lights in Austin Stack Park in March we knew he had what it took to be a star – and, no, we won’t claim to have foreseen his instant impact in championship hurling.

He wasn’t even supposed to start that game for the Under 21 footballers. Seán Hayes had wanted to start Cathal Vaughan against Darragh Ó Sé’s Kerry side, Cadogan’s hurling commitments limited t h e amount of training he could do with the footballers.

Thrown into the fray at near the last minute, he was completely unfazed. As a matter of fact he was a luminous presence on a dreary night under the (admittedly poor) floodlights. He kicked five points from play and absolutely tormented the Kingdom’s defence. By the end of the match three different defenders tried and failed to contain him.

As impressive as Cadogan was on Sunday – he picked up the man of the match bauble – Gleeson was, arguably, more impressive. There was a hell of a lot more pressure on his young shoulders than there was on Cadogan’s.

Cadogan came into a Cork side who were inches away from an All Ireland title last September and an unfortunate refereeing decision away from a Munster title last July. No disrespect, but Waterford are no Cork and they came into this game on a bit of a downer following their relegation to Division 1B.

As the star of last year’s All Ireland winning Deise minor side some people within the county would have had unreasonable expectations of what Gleeson could do for them. It’s the type of pressure that a lot of former underage stars wilt under.

Not Gleeson. He scored 1-1 from play and hit as sweetly struck a sideline cut between the sticks as you’re likely to see. This was a performance to justify the expectation. This was a performance to justify the hype and the headlines.

None of which means that Gleeson and Cadogan will live up to their promise in the replay next week. None of which means they’ll be amongst the decisive performers of this year’s championship. That’s where the grand sweeping statement sometimes comes a cropper. Circumstances change, form ebbs and flow, empires rise and fall and today’s headlines very quickly become yesterday’s news. Not that we expect Cadogan and Gleeson to become yesterday’s news any time soon.

Then again you never know do you? THESE sides clashed in Round 2 last year, with Kilworth coming out on top by two points in a high-scoring thriller.

It was a morale boosting win for the 2012 intermediate kingpins, who had been on the receiving end of a 13-point thrashing from Watergrasshill in the opening round, and they went on to secure a place in the quarter finals before bowing out narrowly against Inniscarra.

By contrast, Carrigaline were eliminated from the title race by Cloyne next time out, and they had just a point to spare over Ballincollig in the relegation final after that. It's worth noting, however, that Carrigaline, for a variety of reasons,