Silke: The Galway management were asking for trouble putting me in there
‘THE LOSING STREAK IN CROKE PARK IS DUE TO A LACK OF QUALITY’
RAY SILKE credits his old Galway teammate Pat Comer with the winning line: ‘Success in sport is about history and geography: to be in the right place at the right time.’
It was Comer who put together the prized documentary ‘A Year
Til Sunday’, the sub-goalkeeper cum filmmaker cataloguing the county’s glorious odyssey during 1998 when Galway bridged a 32year gap in terms of lifting the Sam Maguire Cup. After captaining Corofin to the summit on St Patrick’s Day, Silke completed a glorious double that September, walking up the steps.
That line always resonated with him.
The last time Galway put a glove on Kerry at Croke Park, it was the 2000 All-Ireland final and he was clinging to his place on the first 15, shunted from wing-back to corner-back to fill the hole left by the injured Tomás Mannion.
That day was the only day since the 1965 All-Ireland final that Galway didn’t lose to Kerry on the Championship stage – this afternoon’s quarter-final amounts to a sixth meeting. But it carried a bitter-sweet sting for Silke.
‘As a club or county player, to win an All-Ireland is the pinnacle. To be captain is the cherry on top.
‘But I’ve been through the tumult of emotions. In ’98, I was an All-Ireland winning captain – everyone says you’re a great fella. Two years later I was taken off 40 minutes into an All-Ireland final at corner-back.
‘To my dying day, I would never have picked Ray Silke as a left corner-back at the age of 30. The Galway management team were asking for big, big trouble putting this guy in there at 30 years of age.
‘I remember Kerry withdrew their half-forward line, left a guy who didn’t have an awful lot of pace against a pacy player and exploited that. Which was good management. I was marking Mike Frank [Russell] for 40, 45 minutes. He got two points. Once he got the first ball, you know you’re in trouble. Your mind is telling you where you want to be but the guy you’re marking is faster than you.
‘My last involvement with Galway was 2001, sub on an AllIreland winning team. I thought, “It won’t get any better than this… jump before you’re pushed!” So great times.’
The parallels between then and now are easily drawn. Kerry come with the most lethal inside line in the country: Paul Geaney, Kieran Donaghy and James O’Donoghue, with a view to exposing the Galway full-back line, just as they did to devastating effect in the Munster final against Cork. Just as they did in 2000 when Mike Frank Russell was joined inside by Dara Ó Cinnéide and John Crowley.
‘Will Kerry withdraw their halfforward line?’ asks Silke. ‘Leave it three on three inside? Paul Geaney, “Star”, James O’Donoghue – you have a fullforward line against a full-back line that has been under severe pressure against everybody that they’ve played all year. Galway will need to have a plan.’
And yet if the quality of Kerry’s inside line hasn’t changed, Galway almost had their measure back at the turn of the millennium, missed chances one reason Kerry escaped with a draw the first day before winning the replay.
‘In 2000, Galway were very, very unfortunate for two reasons. One, that Ja Fallon who was an All Star in 1998, and Tomás Mannion, were both unavailable. Had they been available, I probably wouldn’t have started the drawn game.’
After an emphatic victory over Meath in the 2001 All-Ireland final, both counties have fallen off a cliff face since, Galway’s failure to win a game at Croke Park since 2001 much commented upon.
Silke has a very simple explanation. ‘The losing streak in Croke Park since 2001 is explained by a lack of quality in the team. The reason we haven’t beaten Kerry too since is very simple: we haven’t been good enough. And I mean well off the mark.
‘Since then Kerry have won four or five All-Irelands. We couldn’t get in to Division 1. That’s the harsh reality of why we haven’t beaten Kerry in a long, long time.’
On the same afternoon that Galway finally won a significant game at Croke Park back in April, lifting the Division 2 League after out-playing Kildare, Kerry were creating an historical footnote of their own by ending Dublin’s 36game unbeaten streak in the main event.
‘I was at the two games. The Division 2 was like a Ford Fiesta, one litre. The Division 1 was like a Mondeo, two litre.
‘Galway are a Division 2 side just recently promoted. Haven’t played Division 1 for seven or eight years. Kerry are the Division 1 champions. Won an AllIreland in 2014.
‘Anybody who is saying Galway should be punching at that weight is not being realistic about Gaelic football. It’s like a heavyweight and a lightweight going in and hoping Kerry’s performance will drop and we’ll have a performance for the ages. That’s the only way it’s going to happen.
‘We’re playing the second best team in Ireland; we’re not a top eight team as of yet. The team is going to have to man up and put in a brilliant performance just to compete. Winning? Where the f**k is that coming from?’
Today, he’ll travel up with his four kids in hope rather than expectation. The cycle of life means that the Moycullen under12s take up as much of his focus and energy.
‘No Galway supporter going up to Croke Park will be disappointed if Galway are defeated. None. However, we’ll be absolutely distraught if the team don’t go out and really have a go.’
Sometimes, it just comes down to being in the right place at the right time.
History and geography.