How Brian Cody’s men ripped GAA record books to shreds
WHEN John Doyle put his 37-year-old body through the wringer of a punishing training regime in early 1967, his fire was stoked by a letter written by a dear friend from a sick bed in Mount Carmel Hospital. Before cancer thieved the esteemed Tipperary mentor Paddy Leahy from this world, one of his dying wishes was that Doyle would go one better than Christy Ring and claim a record haul of All-Ireland senior hurling medals.
‘Hurl again next year and go for the ninth,’ wrote his old friend. ‘Don’t see any reason why you wouldn’t win it.’
In September 1965, Tipperary’s man-of-iron, an indestructible presence in the famous Hell’s Kitchen full-back line, had been hoisted shoulder-high by his teammates after equalling Ring’s feat of eight All-Irelands, all won on the field of play.
Such storied achievement cemented Doyle’s status amongst the true greats of the game.
‘The first All-Ireland I remember was 1965, which was at the end of his career,’ says his son Michael who hurled with Tipperary and managed the county team himself.
‘I remember him at home always saying that the team won it for him rather than him winning them individually. He was always saying that they had a great team spirit, a great bunch.
‘Then, when the backdoor did come in he was saying, maybe he could have won one or two more. But then he said, after getting rid of Cork in Munster, he might have won a lot less if they had to be beaten a second time.’
When John Harrington’s wonderfully evocative biography ‘Doyle – the Greatest Hurling Story Ever Told’ was published in 2011, detailing the life and times of the late Holycross legend in colourful fashion, four names stood atop the all-time medal list.
Noel Skehan held the record as the only man with nine All-Ireland medals while the iconic figures of Doyle, Ring and Kilkenny’s Frank Cummins held eight – Doyle and Ring stood apart as they were the only two players to win all eight on the field of play (Cummins was an unused substitute in 1967, Skehan similarly as goalkeeper for his first three finals).
Roll on five years and the GAA’s all-time roll of honour is radically altered, now populated by Kilkenny men with all those longstanding records smashed.
Henry Shefflin is peerless on the magic number of 10.
Jackie Tyrrell, JJ Delaney, Tommy Walsh and Noel Hickey have equalled Skehan’s nine.
Another six Kilkenny players – Richie Power, Michael Fennelly, Eoin Larkin, Aidan Fogarty, Eddie Brennan and Michael Kavanagh – are now standing on the shoulders of giants such as Doyle, Ring and Cummins on eight.
‘I wouldn’t rule out one or two of the younger Kilkenny boys, the likes of Richie Hogan or TJ Reid. They look like they’re going to at least equal Henry or pass him out – if Kilkenny keep going the way they are going.’
That might be hard to say as a proud Tipperary man but Michael Doyle knows he is witnessing history in the making. And he puts so much store on the influence of Kilkenny manager Brian Cody in transforming the honours list since he took over at the tail-end of 1998. ‘It’s hard to imagine any team in hurling dominate so much. An awful lot of credit has to go to Cody. He’s the heart and soul of Kilkenny. I don’t know how he keeps the enthusiasm up year on year. You’d be thinking, “he’ll get tired of this” but he seems to come back with renewed vigour.
‘It was only this time that we were talking about JJ Delaney and all the boys going and saying, “Ah, Kilkenny will be weakened without them”. We found out different later in the year!
‘To be fair to the younger con-
tingent, players like TJ Reid really stepped up to the mark. He – especially in the last two years – has come to the forefront. We knew Richie Hogan had it but there was question marks early in TJ’s senior career where he was going. In the last few years though he really has been top notch.’
Doyle has nothing but respect for the achievements of those highly decorated Kilkenny players of the modern era but suggests that it all has to be viewed in context.
‘Nowadays you have the back door. Times are totally different, even from my own time hurling.
‘You know doing history pieces on the GAA, they were different times. Sure different rules were in place. I remember one game in Thurles with Tadhg Murphy in the goal for Tipp – could have been ’73. Compare to Brendan Cummins and that, you could be stuck in the back of the net. Full-backs were only there to stop fellas going in.’
If the modern era belongs to Kilkenny, Tipperary were in their pomp in the 1960s. In its own way, John Doyle’s retirement in 1967 after 19 seasons represented an end of an era.
‘Have a look at the Tipp team when they finished up,’ explains Michael. ‘A lot of them were all of the one age. From the late ’60s, Tipp had to rebuild altogether because they lost so many of the one group at the one time.’
The bonds lasted long after the shared battles on the field, with Kilkenny great Eddie Keher a long-standing friend of the Doyle family.
Michael feels that his father’s achievements, and those of former times, will stand the test of time.
‘I’d find it funny. They’d be often talking about this era and that era, or to pick a team… fair enough you have to do it with a 50-year team or a 100-year team.
‘But really, I don’t think you can compare one with the other.
‘Sure I’d barely have seen Jimmy Doyle hurling. Even the likes of Keher would have been coming towards the end. You had JBM. Then the Nicky English, Pat Fox era. Then you had Eoin Kelly, Henry Shefflin, TJ Reid − Patrick Horgan is another class forward in my mind.
‘It’s very hard to compare one with the other.’
This season, another corner-back – Jackie Tyrrell – has a shot at equalling Shefflin’s record of 10 medals.
Richie Hogan and TJ Reid – aged just 27 and 28 respectively – already have seven each to their name.
Given Kilkenny’s sustained excellence under Brian Cody, it seems only a matter of time before they also share the same page as former greats like John Doyle.