Wheel keeps turning for Grainger
Yesterday, the college played NUI Galway in the fresher A final, while camogie and junior hurling deciders await with the county
championships to come in the summer before the academic year starts again.
Looking back on the events of last weekend in Galway, though, Grainger was satisfied with a job well done by the hurling side, given that it was a year that began so badly. Last September, Grainger’s great friend Paul O’Connor, who coached the college to victory in 1996, ’97, ’98 and 2009, died in tragic circumstances.
Preparations for the upcoming season began later as a result, under new manager Eddie Enright, but the memory of the late O’Connor was the driving force.
“It was always there, in the back of our heads,” Grainger said.
“Eddie spoke very well at the start of the weekend, he said that when we won last year, Paul dedicated it to Tomás Fitzgibbon, who was a grand nephew of Edwin Fitzgibbon and who won three medals in the 1980s, and that this year we were going to do it for Paul.
“We didn’t blare that out, we kept it among ourselves. It was a hugely emotional time, but whatever about the adults, you had these young lads, 22 and 23 years of age, trying to prepare for exams, having to take on board that their great friend and mentor was no longer with them.
“The mental strength that was shown, the way they conducted themselves on and off the field, they were an absolute credit to the university, to UCC GAA Club and their families.”
Having come through a Fitzgibbon group with NUIG, GMIT and Mary Immaculate College and then seeing off Cork IT, UCC were in the unusual position of being outsiders before last Friday’s semi-finals, with Nicky English’s management of UCD, and Mary I’s emergence as challengers, removing the spotlight.
In Grainger’s eyes, however, one timeless asset UCC possess is that lesser-renowned players come good when it matters.
“You look at the Lawtons [Brian and Barry] from Castlemartyr, a junior club, neither of them had played Fitzgibbon before,” he said.
“That’s the beauty of it, that you unearth guys like this. In my time it was a guy called Ollie Kearney from Lismire, in Billy Morgan’s time it was Ger Herlihy from Glenville, there’s always someone, in 2009 you had Don Hanley from Knockaderry in Limerick.
“UCD had targeted our big men like William Egan, Conor Lehane, Stephen Maher, Killian Murphy but afterwards Nicky asked me ‘Where did ye get the lad with the white helmet, number 12?’ and I told him it was Brian Lawton.”
The appointment of Enright as manager to succeed O’Connor was the perfect choice.
“It was like Paulo turned off a switch and
Eddie just turned it back on again,” Grainger said.
“That was the first time he had ever coached a team — what does that tell you? He just knows the way the whole system works. When we asked him, he was never reluctant, even though he has a young family and a demanding job.
“He probably felt a duty, that’s the UCC way, through Billy Morgan, Dr Paddy Crowley, Dr Con, Paul O’Keeffe, fellas like that. It’s a
mindset that Canon O’Brien would have given to Paul O’Connor and that Paul O’Connor would have given to Eddie Enright.”
Crucially, the desire to honour O’Connor’s memory never became debilitating.
“Emotion can paralyse you, but it can also drive you on,” Grainger said.
“He’s the kind of guy that, when you thought of him, he’d give you inspiration. In the second half of the final, Mary I were
coming at us and we were two or three points up, I just said, ‘Paulo, come on, keep us going here now kid.’
“It was emotional when the game was over, but it was such a fitting tribute. We could have rolled over and offered excuses, we had lost Paul, we had started training late and that the buzz wasn’t there and everybody would have said that was fine.
“That was never going to happen, and now Paul has 11 Fitzgibbons, five as a player, five as a manager, and this one.”
