Saturday, February 04, 2012
Three of the sides playing in this weekend’s Waterford Crystal senior hurling quarter-finals have managers from one club, St Finbarr’s of Cork.
John Allen (Limerick), John Meyler (Kerry) and Jimmy Barry-Murphy (Cork) won county titles in the famous blue jersey, but management wasn’t an obvious career path for any of the players, says Allen.
"When you’re playing that’s all that’s in your head, playing and being the best you can be. At that stage the Barr’s were having a lot of success in hurling and football with county and All-Ireland titles. But it wouldn’t have crossed my mind that I’d become an intercounty manager, and that would be the same for the rest of the lads. Nobody stood out in the dressing-room as an future manager — the guy who stood out as a real leader when I started with the Barr’s was Denis Burns, who coached Cork to a minor All-Ireland, but I wouldn’t have picked out a load of managers in the dressing-room."
There was no real cult of the manager at the time, either.
"That’s pretty recent, I don’t know if you’d date it to Mick O’Dwyer and Kevin Heffernan in the seventies, maybe, which began the profile of the manager. It’s grown out of all proportion since and there’s huge pressure now on the manager."
Allen remembers Meyler as a "tough, uncompromising player," adding: "The funny thing is that before he joined us in the Barr’s I’d have known him really as a soccer player, he was a high-scoring forward in that game, so when he fell in with us I expected him to be a good scorer with the Gaelic football team, but he was a defender in Gaelic football, not a forward. In hurling he was a very strong player — I suppose the Barr’s would have been known as a fast, skilful team around that time, and he brought a lot of physical strength to the team, in addition to being a good hurler."
Jimmy Barry-Murphy was a star name but a quiet presence in the dressing-room. "He would have done his talking on the field, to use that old cliche," says Allen. "There was always huge pressure on Jimmy to perform because of who he was. He’d been a minor in ’72, had won a senior football All-Ireland the following year, and from then on everybody knew who he was. He was the marquee name of the time. I’d remember going to club games with him, particularly games up the country, and you knew going up there that he’d be the number one target for the opposition.
"But he’d be relaxed on the way up, having a laugh or playing cards. He seemed to be able to handle that pressure well without ever appearing to be a front-of-house man. He wouldn’t have been giving the ‘die dog or eat the hatchet speech’ before games or anything."
Waterford Crystal Cup SH quarter-finals: Tipperary v UL, Nenagh, 2pm; Cork v Kerry, Pairc Ui Rinn, 3pm; Limerick v Clare, Sixmilebridge, 7pm; Tomorrow: Waterford v UCC , WIT, 2pm.
© Examiner Publications (Cork) Limited, City Quarter, Lapps Quay, Cork. Registered in Ireland: 73385.
