MARC ó SÉ DEFENDS ‘CYNICAL’ KINGDOM
AS I write I am in the process of parcelling a Donegalbound basket of hand cream to Éamon McGee. I hope he accepts my peace-offering even though it is almost four years late, but apparently he was so taken aback by my pre-match handshake in the 2014 All-Ireland final that last week, he wrote in his national newspaper column that had he his time back he would have put me on ‘my a**e.’
I was laughing as I read it but it was Éamon’s way of introducing his view that Kerry are no strangers to the ‘dark arts’.
Honestly, it is not something I had even thought about — a handshake.
It was almost a subconscious thing and one of the benefits of being Páidí’s nephew is that you got to meet the good and the great, the strong and the powerful.
Every time I got to shake Bertie Ahern’s hand it felt like mine was being crushed by two sheets of metal, while the former Taoiseach’s eyes bore through you.
It is how you make an impression, and obviously it must have worked if – four years on – Éamon feels it is worth resurrecting. But if a firm handshake qualifies as a dark art, then there will be no light left in the game at all.
I mean, on the scale of crimes committed against the human hand on a football pitch it is some way down the scale compared to the finger manipulation suffered a few years back by Kerry’s Alan Fitzgerald at the hands of Éamon’s brother Neil.
The thing is I like Éamon, he is a quick-witted popular guy but what grates with me is his suggestion that Kerry football has always sought to sell itself as something that it is not.
And that this has been facilitated by the ‘Kerry PR’ machine, which consists of former players in the media – of which I am now one – who keep spinning that line and a gullible public swallows it whole.
That is nonsense and not even a close relation to the truth. I would argue the opposite – and you can accuse me of paranoia – that at every opportunity, Kerry football is singled out for its cynical ways.
It is probably going on 15 years now since Billy Morgan, in the immediate aftermath of his Cork team losing to us, described us as the most cynical team in the land.
He may well have believed that but Billy – who I like and admire – would hardly qualify as an impartial observer of Kerry football, especially following a defeat, and yet time and again that quote resurfaces as if it is brand new. I have never denied that we were cynical. Hell, I only had to look across the breakfast table at Darragh to know that much, because if you wanted to snaffle the last slice of toast, you might just get an elbow for your troubles.
If you wanted to play ball with Darragh, he would play ball with you and if you wanted to act the b ***** ks, then he wouldn’t find it too hard to drop down to that level, either.
He wasn’t the only one; when he started out he was in the company of men like Liam Flaherty and Éamonn Breen who took no messing, and in our time, the likes of Paul Galvin and Aidan O’Mahony would never hesitate to do what was required.
But this is the way it has always been. There is not a team out there, certainly not one that has enjoyed any kind of success that does not have those players or that attitude.
I always remember how Tyrone were left battered and bruised by Meath in the 1996 All-Ireland semifinal, and how Ciaran ‘Dinky’ McBride was literally trod on.
I remember thinking how innocent and naive Tyrone were back then but when I met them in the flesh a decade later, I soon realised they didn’t need any lessons in being streetwise.
That is football and every team that has won an All-Ireland over the past 30 years, or perhaps a lot longer, has had that streak. That included Jim McGuinness’ Donegal for whom Michael Murphy made my eyes water in the 2012 All-Ireland quarterfinal.
Even though I was not marking him, any chance I got I was let Murphy know that I was around by hopping off him.
Then at one stage, as Brendan Kealy was preparing to take a kick-out, Murphy wandered out in front of me with his arms stretched.
It was if he was in the process of covering the kick by spreading his hands out wide, but it was just a cover to smack me right in the nose. I had no complaints, I had it coming and, truth be told, I admired the ingenuity of how he got his hit in… all accidental, like.
Last weekend, Kerry’s physicality in their win over Mayo attracted a lot of commentary, not least for Ronan Shanahan’s tackle on Evan Regan, which left the Mayo forward with a broken cheekbone.
It could be peddled as Kerry ‘dirt’ but it was not in the least pre-meditated. Certainly, it was high and it could be argued that it was reckless, but there was no intent to hurt.
Still, it would be fair to say that Kerry ‘bullied’ Mayo around the pitch, much as Mayo did the exact same thing last August in Croke Park when it really mattered.
But when you use a phrase like ‘bully’ it suggests that something underhand has taken place when the reality is that all you are doing is making sure that your first impression makes for a lasting one.
A bit like a strong hand-shake…