IT’S THE TINY CLUBS THAT TELL GAA’S EPIC STORY
‘IF YOU HAVE BOTH THE HEART AND THE DESIRE, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE’
IT’S taken Ballyea’s remarkable path to the All-Ireland club hurling final on St Patrick’s Day to restore my sense of optimism about the future of the game in terms of the big picture. Here’s a tiny club in Clare coming up against Cuala, a massive club in south Dublin. What it says to me is that the ‘small fish’, as Davy Fitz might put it, can still compete. That it doesn’t always have to be about numbers or resources.
The club championship is inspiring that way. It asks the likes of Offaly who are going through a really dark period right now, why can’t it be done? Why can’t they get back competing?
Hurling is not like other games which put more of a premium still on fitness and size. Take a small club like Slaughtneil as another example – if you have the heart, desire and the commitment, anything is possible. Small can compete with big if the commitment is there.
Sometimes I wonder if we are trying to blame everyone else when things don’t go right. The club shows that there is no stopping a player making it if he has the raw talent and application.
That said, it also helps to have a special talent like Tony Kelly in your ranks.
From 18, 19 years of age, he has been a hurling sensation. But he has already referenced the influence of Tony Griffin who decided to stick with Ballyea rather than switch to a bigger club. It was Griffin who stopped the rot and showed that a small club can be a platform for big things, going on to win an All-Star with Clare.
Cuala are a great story, too – just a different type of one. Dublin has produced lots of big clubs. In football, St Vincent’s are a traditional powerhouse and, in recent years, the likes of Ballyboden St Enda’s have come along with its huge playing base.
Cuala may be a big club famous for the likes of the Holdens but they have had to fight to carve their own niche in Dalkey and a part of Dublin where other sports have a stronger hold. They, too, have relied on a strong hurling tradition with the family connections bridging a link to a past generation. It’s one thing to have massive numbers, but these players had to devote just as much time as Kelly working on their game.
They have brought that country parish mentality to what is a huge city club. They are poles apart in some respects – and yet so similar in others.
It got me thinking about how we did it in Offaly. When I was starting out in the mid-80s playing club hurling in Offaly, the club competition was very strong. St Rynagh’s were just one of a number of clubs who were successful. You had Lusmagh, Coolderry and, of course, Birr who won four club All-Irelands. In the middle of that Seir Kieran emerged, a team who beat us in a number of finals.
Clareen, as we called them, had, I’d say, 300 people in the entire parish. In that most competitive era, they were capable of competing with the best around – and winning. With most of the team coming from a few families, the likes of the Dooleys and the Coughlans. It shows how a legacy can be built from three or four houses.
It’s very difficult right now at inter-county level to compete with the superpowers who have a big advantage in all sorts of ways as I’ve spoken about before – say Dublin and Kerry in football and hurling’s traditional superpowers of Kilkenny and Tipperary.
But the evening I spent last Saturday in James Stephens in Kilkenny showed just how much pride there is at club level. For Jackie Tyrrell and Eoin Larkin, the club staged a celebration of their careers. I was there as MC and it was a brilliant night.
The two boys had won All-Ireland club medals themselves, along with all their All-Irelands with Kilkenny. It’s not a cliché: you could see the All-Ireland club was top of the pile of medals won. Henry Shefflin was there and was so proud that he had three All-Ireland club medals to their one – and gave them a good ribbing about it. Brian Cody and Tommy Walsh were also present and it was all about that pride in the
parish.
It was great to see a club honouring its county stars. A lot of the time, that doesn’t happen. I counted 125 All-Ireland medals in the room!
Joe Hennessy and Georgie Leahy received the warmest of receptions and Davy Fitz was great craic on the night as well.
Players don’t get testimonials when they finish up – it’s not the GAA way – but this was a lovely way of honouring their contribution.
A reminder as well that before county comes club.
With the push on to switch to a calendar year, if this is one of the last St Patrick’s Day club All-Ireland finals, it won’t be a disaster. The Munster and Leinster finals took place way before Christmas, so it would be good to tighten up the fixture list.