As all buy into the herd mentality
He won’t, of course, show that in any particularly noticeable way, but coming off the field at the end of the quarter-final win over Moyle Rovers last Sunday week one could detect the slightest sense of annoyance in Cooper.
Kiely, for his part, seems to wear a constant boyish grin anyway so it’s harder to detect what he must be feeling on the inside.
At 38 Brosnan probably feels he has, maybe, no right to a starting place anymore, but it was a nice touch to give him a couple of minutes of action at the end of the county final win over Dingle as he – along with Cooper – collected his record making eighth county championship medal.
Alan O’Sullivan is another who could, with some justification, feel a little miffed at where he finds himself at the moment. A starter in the 2017 All-Ireland Club Final, he was still a starter for the first round game against St Kierans in the county championship just over, but now, still only 31, he’s had to make way in the half-back line for the returning Gavin White, another of the young tyros coming up the ranks in Lewis Road.
So why no uprising or drama or dissent? It’s simple. In this 30plus Dr Crokes squad there are no sacred cows. Everyone has bought into and continues to buy into the herd mentality. One for all and all for one.
“I’d be lying if I said Colm [Cooper] is happy coming on, of course not. The same with Jordan Kiely, Michael Potts and all these fellas,” team selector Edmund O’Sullivan said Sunday when asked if management’s hardest job is keeping all the players happy, especially those on the bench who probably feel they’re good enough to start. “The reason Colm is not starting is because Colm was sick against An Ghaeltacht and Tony Brosnan came in for him and kicked 1-14, so that’s the way it is. If you look at Colm, he’s one of the best players that ever played the game and his attitude in training is spot on. He’s not sulking, he’s not doing anything like that, he’s leading by example the whole time so if he’s doing it the rest of them have to fall into place.”
Kieran O’Leary – his starting place secure for now – concurs.
“The biggest thing for us is our panel because it means that every fella is looking over his shoulder,” he said. “We always had a good panel but we have a ferociously strong panel this year and we’re really using it, and bringing on all subs and it’s just great to be part of.
“Colm came in and kicked three points so who knows who’ll be starting the next day. It’ll all be on training, which is a fantastic thing.
“Training is fairly intense, Pat [O’Shea] would go eight days in the week if he could. There’s 30-odd lads training and there’s been numerous changes on the team throughout the year and it’s been fantastic.”
To see O’Shea constantly challenging his players and berating them for making mistakes, even when Crokes were 15 points ahead in the second half, shows how high the standard is set.
A poor performance will see a player fish-hooked out of a game no matter who is is, no matter his reputation. Likewise, a player who delivers will be left in the team, regardless of his name or age or anything else.
There are no sacred cows in this Dr Crokes panel, and that’s what it is: a panel of players, not a team.
As St Finbarrs manager Ray Keane said on Sunday evening: “There’s no team in the country that wouldn’t have Potts in the team, Naughton not in the team, Brosnan not in the team, Gooch not in the team, Kiely not in the team and manage to get away with it and play so comfortably.”
No team, that is, except this Dr Crokes team.