JONNY BE GOOD
There wasn’t much glory in wearing the No 33 shirt, but Cooper was on the way up
AROUND him, Croke Park erupted in a pleasant state of bedlam but Jonny Cooper never felt so low. He forced a smile watching an elated Bryan Cullen lift the Delaney Cup but he was already having an internal debate, wondering if he was even good enough. Five years ago, Leinster football finals still resembled competitive affairs and Dublin, the defending All-Ireland champions, had edged past Meath by only three points. Cooper watched as the game hung in the balance, not absorbed in the tension as he should have been because he knew he had no role.
Prior to the match, he was handed a jersey with number 33 on the back. Looking back now, with three Celtic Crosses and an All-Star award safely tucked away as trinkets, Cooper is careful to stress the importance of everyone in the squad. In Jim Gavin’s regime, the party-line is that the 36th player is just as significant as number one. Back then though, he felt differently.
Number 33 was nothing more than a token. ‘I remember getting that jersey for the Leinster final. They don’t even make those jerseys with 33 on them. It was just a token for the lads that didn’t get on the match-day panel,’ Cooper recalls.
‘I remember standing down on the pitch, watching the lads lift the cup and it was a moment when I wasn’t overly comfortable. It was ironic, the team had just won a Leinster championship so I should have been at my most elated and happiest, being in Croke Park after winning, But it was actually very different. Being number 33 didn’t really do it for me.’
Cooper says that jersey is still somewhere in his Glasnevin home. Not that he needs to take it as a reminder how far he has come in the past five seasons. As he is preparing for his fourth All-Ireland final in five years as one of Dublin’s most important defensive cogs, the memory of that afternoon in Croke Park is enough.
‘I wouldn’t pull it out and look at it and use it as a driver in that sense. But it is something that is part and parcel of my motivation, I suppose, part of my drive to get where I am. 33 isn’t something I like to be on a list, so yeah it is part of my motivation.’
Such a fork in the road was something Cooper had never experienced before. He had played both football and hurling for Dublin as a minor and was part of the Dublin colleges team that claimed an All-Ireland hurling medal. He won an AllIreland Under 21 medal under Gavin in 2010.
But as others, such as Rory O’Carroll, made a seamless transition to the senior ranks, Cooper found his way blocked. And under Pat Gilroy, his face just didn’t seem to fit.
When the St Vincent’s man stepped down in the autumn of 2012 after setting the foundations for the Dublin dominance that was to come, Cooper asked to meet him to learn what was holding him back. And Gilroy’s answer was straight: He wasn’t good enough.
‘That’s what he said. That I wasn’t good enough,’ Cooper remembers. ‘I took it on the chin. I met him at the end of the year when he resigned and just said I wanted some facts about where I was stood. And in fairness, he gave them to me. It was a lot of stuff I realised before going in for the chat with him, but I just wanted to get it from the man who had just won the All-Ireland and obviously knew his stuff.’ He took Gilroy’s feedback on board and later that winter was boosted when Gavin was named as his successor. As a manager, he trusted Cooper enough to make him his captain at U21 level. They knew what they could get out of each other. Cooper is the sort of intense, driven character that appealed to the type of team Gavin was trying to build. ‘I always had the ambition to do it, but there was probably a bit of selfdoubt and maybe some confidence issues. When I should have been pushing on at 20 or 21, I was nearly missing the boat, if I hadn’t missed the boat for a little while. ‘But there was always a drive there and maybe an inner battle too to be good enough and getting an opportunity. And maybe I took the feedback from Pat, and took a lot of confidence from Jim getting the job and those two merged. It took me an extra few years to be on the platform, to be comfortable on the platform.’ He’s certainly comfortable now. In the past five seasons, he has become one of Gavin’s most trusted lieutenants. From Colm Cooper to Andy Moran, he has a number of scalps on his belt for nullifying the threat of opposition dangermen. There is no risk of him being the 33rd man in this Dublin panel. If they are to claim a third AllIreland title in a row this afternoon, Cooper will have played a big part by shutting down the prospective Footballer of the Year in Moran.
‘Over the last few years, Jonny has come on leaps and bounds,’ says Barry Cahill, who was still on the Dublin panel when Cooper made his first uncertain steps as a senior footballer. Cahill feels a lack of aggression probably counted against the Na Fianna man back then.
‘Jonny has added more aggression to his game in the past 18 months and that possibly held him back when he first came in. He always had the footballing skills, but I think his positioning, in particular, has been outstanding in the past couple of years.
‘He is very good at reading the game. Maybe he hasn’t been making as many forward bursts in the past two seasons, I don’t know whether that is intentional or instruction from management, but Dublin look a tighter unit with Jonny back there.’
Cooper, who works as a recruiting officer in DCU, will be 28 this November and is reaching his peak. And he defines himself as a Dublin footballer and doesn’t understand how anyone can complain about representing your county.
‘I love it, absolutely love it,’ he proclaims of playing for Dublin. ‘I don’t believe that it consumes or takes over your life. Personally, that’s not how I am built. I have only a short window at it, and I wasn’t part of the team for a couple of years. It is not like I have been in the team since I was 18 or 19.
‘I came to it a little bit later, so I do have those couple of years of being idle and knowing what it is like not to be involved in it so that probably makes me appreciate it a bit more.’
When Cooper is asked what else Dublin can achieve, his focus and driven nature come to the fore and his answer is stark. He believes there should be no ceiling to their ambition, win or lose this afternoon.
‘I’d argue that there is no ceiling to what we can strive to achieve. I would look at it in that respect so that is it is never-ending. We are down the line a bit in terms of the last couple of years but new guys have come on the scene to give us the fresh impetus.
‘That is the culture, that is the identity, and some of the values that myself and other people that have been there a couple of years are trying to spread. The old saying of leaving the jersey better than you found it and that is probably no truer than of this group of players, and how driven they are to be a little bit better. It is nice to be part of.’
As Dublin strive for immortality this afternoon, he is a central player. If Croke Park erupts in bedlam this evening as they achieve three-in-arow, Jonny Cooper will feel fully a part of it.
Better being Number 3 than 33.