MARC Ó SÉ
Kerry legend gives it straight
TODAY’S GAME HAS THE APPEAL OF TWO BALD MEN FIGHTING OVER A COMB...
IT IS unlikely that there will ever be a twinning ceremony but, when I was growing up, Ard a Bhóthair was a good match for Sandy Row when it came to tribal fervour during the July marching season.
This might sound like a cliché, but it is true. My grandmother had such a profound sense of intolerance in the run-up to the Munster final (then again, her pride and joy, Paidi, was togging out), that she would not even allow a red towel hang on the washing line that week.
She used to house students who travelled west for Irish college and if they had the misfortune to have only red underwear they’d have to go commando rather than fan the flames of prejudice by asking her to include their smalls in the laundry.
But here is my shameful secret. I had a love-hate relationship when it came to Cork football in that, in the interests of family harmony, I voiced by intolerance of them publicly but, privately, I was in awe.
nLast week while training with Ard a Bhóthairin the John Mitchels grounds, I took a bad knock to the head which left me concussed. The following day, I was speaking to Darran O’Sullivan on the phone and he asked me about the head. Bad news must travel fast I thought, so I asked him how he heard and he looked at me quizzically. Kerry had also been training at the John Mitchels club that night and, in my concussed state, I wandered into a room where Darran had been receiving physio. Apparently we spoke for several minutes.I could not recall any of it. Which is funny in a slapstick kind of way, but it’s pretty scary too.
You see, I grew up in a freakish time when Kerry had no heroes of our own. We went 11 years between 1986 and 1997 without winning an All-Ireland; it was Cork who had all the stars that time. All my early heroes were Cork footballers — Niall Cahalane, Stephen O’Brien, Shay Fahy, Teddy Mac and, of course, Larry Tompkins. Those were the players that I modelled myself on and, above all, my alltime Cork hero, Jimmy Barry Murphy.
When TG4 did their Laochra Gael tribute to JBM a number of years ago I watched it over and over. Long after I was out of short-trousers, I was still a groupie. When everyone outside of Cork was shouting for Clare in the 2013 hurling final, I was the one ‘neutral’ roaring on the Rebels... because of JBM, of course.
There are times when I feel like one of those over-sensitive English people who, every time they meet an Irish person, feel obliged to apologise for the Famine.
Let me alone in a room of Cork folk, and I find myself apologising for Jimmy Deenihan’s elbows which seemed to sprout instinctively every time he marked JBM in the latter’s regrettably short football career.
In a way, JBM sums up one of Cork’s main football issues. He walked away from the game and became a five-time hurling champion. I know it is a tad simplistic to suggest that the dual issue is the reason why Cork football is on its knees right now, but I believe it is a huge contributory factor both directly and indirectly. Aidan Walsh is back with them again, but it tells you something about the pull of hurling that a two-time All-Star midfielder would give up it all up to have a shot at playing a code in which he was less celebrated.
That applies to others like Damien Cahalane, Eoin Cadogan – who tried for a time to saddle both horses – and his younger brother Alan, who might just be the best inside forward in Cork football. The problem is, he is also the best inside forward in Cork hurling. And when that is the case there is no decision to be made.
The dual issue extends beyond which code you opt for. In recent years we feared that Cork were primed to dominate us given the level of success they were having at under-21 level (they’ve won 10 Munster titles to Kerry’s one since 2004), and yet they’ve barely landed blow at senior level this decade.
That is hard to fathom. In 2011 they beat us in a Munster under-21 semi-final by 22 points and yet, three years later, five of those players were on the senior team that lost by 12 points to a Kerry team that also included five of those under21s.
That is not a freak because it keeps recurring. In terms of size, Cork dwarfs Kerry (they have close to three times as many footballers) but I’d reckon we probably play three times as much football as they do. That is at the core of Cork’s issues and, again, it comes down to the dual issue. When you have to set fixtures for two codes, your structures are never going to be as robust as a predominantly single code county.
In Cork, players are not just hopping between teams, they are hopping between codes so something has to suffer.
The county football league in Kerry is taken very seriously unlike in Cork, that wouldn’t be the case because players are often spread too thinly.
In Kerry, you have a county league, county championship, club championship, divisional championship and divisional league which means that you are getting football, football and then some more football..
And nothing
I grew up in a freakish time when we had no heroes of our own...
develops players like playing serious ball. I sense that Cork players don’t quite get that opportunity to keep building on their skillset. The other commonly spun theory is that they need an outside manager, but I am not convinced about that. I am not sure it works in a traditional county (from experience, being managed by one of your own means everything). You can’t lead a tribe if you are not of the tribe. The same goes for Cork. Tomás still works closely with Billy Morgan at UCC, and the awe in which he is held there is incredible.
I find it hard to believe that they can’t find a manager but they just have to appoint the right one. Right now, however, they’re just not good enough.
They have no leaders and there is a genuine lack of quality there, not least in terms of inside forwards.
The news that Brian Hurley had suffered another bad hamstring injury is depressing to hear. I marked him in his rookie season in 2013 and he was a real handful so I really hope he can make it back.
But then they have been very unlucky with injuries. Colm O’Neill is a rare talent, the forward they’ve been screaming out for, but the three cruciate ligament injuries have left their mark. He is still a highly-skilled player but his threat — and Cork’s — has diminished.
They play Meath today in a game that resonates from another age when they were the market leaders. It has the feel of two bald men scrapping over a comb.
It was so much more fun when they were so respected in the Kingdom that we dared not see red.