Positive attitude gives Jerry the edge

By Diarmuid O’Flynn

Thursday, November 26, 2009

CRUNCH time on the club scene this weekend, with Ballyhale Shamrocks (Kilkenny) meeting Tullamore (Offaly) in Portlaoise in the Leinster senior hurling final, Ballygunner (Waterford) facing Newtownshandrum (Cork) in the Munster decider.

And yet, a sure sign of the times, whenever a meeting takes place between media and players to discuss those upcoming games, the talk almost invariably turns to jobs, and the challenges now being faced by those who are all in that age group and of that gender worst affected by the current crisis – young men in their 20s.

So it was a couple of weeks ago with the Fennelly brothers of Ballyhale, so it is again this week with Jerry O’Mahony and John Paul King, team-mates with Newtownshandrum, workmates in their home area.

Jerry was – and is – the subject of this interview, John Paul just happened to be on site; both are fully qualified electricians, and with Christmas just around the corner, work becoming scarcer and scarcer, both are concerned for the future. Jerry: "It’s getting very quiet, you’re just trying to tip away, get a few jobs here and there, but come January, you don’t know what’s going to happen."

Emigration, perhaps? "Where would you go?" he asks, but the question is rhetorical, already answered; "I don’t think there’s anything anywhere else either, every place else seems to be in the same boat. You just have to bide your time, hang on – maybe try for different jobs, go for something else to tide you over. I worked with my father for a few months during the summer, painting and that wasn’t too bad, but sure I’d try my hand at anything."

It’s a very positive attitude, but it’s simply a reflection of his attitude on the field. Reflects too a line in a book on the great Waterford goalkeeper Ned Power (My Father, A Hurling Revolutionary, by Conor Power), a renowned hurling coach, in which Ned states that as a man is on the field, so he is in life.

From an early age, Jerry O’Mahony showed great potential as a hurler, but it was up front, or in midfield. ‘Small Jerry’ as he’s known, to differentiate him from his first cousin Jerry O’Connor, three years ago, when Newtownshandrum again met Ballygunner in the Munster club final, he was corner-forward, sometimes midfield, battling to hold onto his place.

So, he changed tack, changed position: "There happened to be a league match in Douglas a while back, they stuck me in at corner-back, and I’ve been there since. I was happy to make any position on the team, you don’t mind where you’re playing as long as you’re playing. And I like it, I have to say." There’s that attitude again.

Mind you, once you get to know the character of Jerry O’Mahony, it was always going to be a natural fit anyway. Without question, corner-back is one of the most challenging positions on any hurling team; you’re there primarily to do a spoiling job, a man-marker, snuffing out an opposition danger man, which can mean suffocating your own natural attacking instinct. Jerry took to it instantly, and he’s good at it, very good.

To call him tigerish is misleading, suggests bulk – he’s more like the cheetah, still strong but faster, much faster, and just as deadly when he closes in for the kill. And the kill, for Jerry, doesn’t mean breaking bones, doing the dirt; it means getting the ball, cleanly, clinically, and starting the move that will often end in a score for one of his twin cousins at the other end.

Not that he’s a pushover either, you understand, even if he does stand at just 5’7", weighs in at ten stone seven. He’s been targeted, often, but always manages to hold his own. "I’d play fair, always, but if I get it I can give it back. No point being in there if you’re not going to get involved – it’s championship, isn’t it, and this is a Munster final. You play to your strengths, and obviously I’m not the biggest man, so I use my pace. You get targeted, of course, teams will try that against you, but I never go out thinking – ‘Oh, there’s a big man coming’. You don’t let things like that get to you; just play your own game, play to your strengths, whatever they happen to be."

And anyway, given the man he faces every night in training, why should Jerry O’Mahony fear anyone? "I’d be marking Ben all the time, and it can get hot at times – I obviously want to beat him to every ball, he wants to do the same, but it’s good that way, you learn more; how could you NOT learn, marking Ben O’Connor!"

Attitude again, an attitude, perhaps, whose existence and potential we can underestimate, not just in the deceptively slight frame of Jerry O’Mahony, but in all those of his generation.

There’s hope, not just for Newtownshandrum, for Ballygunner, Ballyhale Shamrocks and Tullamore this weekend, but for us all.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Thursday, November 26, 2009