They haven’t gone away...
SINCE 2002 Cork’s fate in the football championship has sometimes resembled that of the tragically presumptuous teenager in a slasher B-movie. Having left their nemesis gasping for air on several occasions, Cork’s expectation that the ordeal was over has often seemed reasonable. The conventions of the genre, however, dictate that several gory sequels are required before the tormentor is finally put to rest. Will Sunday’s encounter with the dreaded Kerry be the final instalment, or will the Kingdom, disposed of so emphatically in the opening scenes, make another improbable return from the dead to administer the terminal blow?
The success of the slasher movie rests on the fact that although we know well what is going to happen next, we are always surprised just the same. Cork know what to expect on Sunday while Kerry’s chances will depend on their ability to surprise them anyway.
Conor Counihan has done a remarkable job in restoring confidence to Cork and they have been playing like a team for whom the concept of self-doubt is an alien one. Such is their recent history with Kerry, however, that despite the vast reservoirs of self-belief built up by Counihan over two seasons, a certain level of anxiety is probably inevitable. If episodes one, two, three and four of this slasher saga have taught Cork anything it is that forewarned does not necessarily mean forearmed.
Cork’s last six championship defeats have been to Kerry and we must venture as far back as 2004 to find another team apart from Kerry (Fermanagh) to have beaten them in championship football. There was always a suspicion in recent years Cork might have fared better than Kerry in their Croke Park trials with Tyrone, but we never got to test that theory until last month when Cork did at the first time of asking what Kerry failed to accomplish in three attempts.
In some respects, Conor Counihan’s Cork remind me of the Offaly team coached by Eugene McGee 30 years ago. As the sleeve notes on Michael Foley’s 2007 masterpiece, ‘Kings of September’ tell us “it had taken Offaly six heart-breaking years under manager Eugene McGee to drag themselves up from their lowest ebb, but they now stood on the cusp of a glorious reward”.
Cork, too have had their lowest ebb, in that defeat to Fermanagh in 2004, and ever since they have been dragging themselves up to the point where the only hurdle left to jump in their evolution as a team, and indeed the only obstacle between them and the ultimate reward, is the leap they need to take to beat a Kerry team in Croke Park.
That leap could well be taken on Sunday but even if they fall short their relationship with Kerry in recent years is hardly likely to obscure their credentials as the best team in Ireland up until September 20th at least.
It is only natural that players such as Daniel Goulding, Colm O’Neill and Paddy Kelly should wonder what all the fuss is about. They have performed consistently well against Kerry in recent years to have no hang-ups about the green and gold jersey and they also must be entitled to feel that a shift in the balance of power has been overdue for some time now. The success at Under-21 level and the Cork influence in CIT’s Sigerson Cup win earlier will have copper-fastened the belief that emerging talent is about to realise its latent potential. The younger Cork players have enough experienced heads around them to correct that train of thought however, and a brief chat with those on the slow lane to self-actualisation will inform them that the hierarchy of needs simply doesn’t work like that. Being so close for so long must imbue certain Cork players with a sense of entitlement but how much has ‘deserve’ got to do with it really? Haven’t Cork suffered enough at the hands of Kerry and doesn’t that suffering entitle them to some semblance of natural justice and just reward? You would think so.
In light of Tipperary’s recent defeat in the hurling final, the great GAA notion of having to ‘lose one to win one’ has become almost axiomatic. There is a growing sense among the hurling fraternity that Tipperary will eventually relieve Kilkenny of their crown and likewise, Cork are seen as best placed to break the Tyrone-Kerry duopoly (if they haven’t already done so). But GAA history is littered with examples of long-suffering teams showing up at heaven’s gate and leaving disappointed again and again and there are no guarantees for Cork either.
This final for Kerry is going to be about tradition and experience and redemption. For Cork it’s going to be about the same things. To get their glorious reward, they are going to have to overcome all of that and then play the game at the same level or higher than they did in the semi-final defeat of Tyrone. That’s a lot to ask for.
Despite the obvious appeal of all of this for fans of the game in both counties, the prospect of two teams playing each other for the 19th time this decade and for the seventh time in Croke Park is unlikely to enthuse the neutral observer. However, when it is framed by what will most likely be the concluding chapter in the Kerry story and the beginning of a period of Cork dominance on the national stage, it becomes compelling viewing.
This could be a game for the ages.
Based on some random performances since the start of the six finals in-a-row sequence we know what Kerry are capable of. Despite losing two of their five finals since 2004, Kerry have yet to under-perform in a final and it has taken a good Tyrone team each time to beat them. How good are Cork?
We suspect they are very good. Not entirely based on what we saw last month against Tyrone, in which they showed awesome athleticism and purpose, but because we suspect that unlike two years ago, Kerry have become Cork’s greatest motivational device and we also sense that particular motivation has a more mature focus to it now than it had within the camp that played the occasion in September 2007.
The low-key demeanour of the Cork players and management all year tells its own story and it seems everything they’ve done together since Conor Counihan took over in the aftermath of the Teddy Holland debacle – the constitution of the team, the selection of certain players and the omission of certain others – has been geared towards this goal and towards this particular opposition.
Kerry too know a thing or two about preparing obsessively for one particular opposition and while the slaying of the Tyrone giant remains as elusive as ever for them, the lessons imparted by Mickey Harte and his men will surely not go undigested.
Kerry will recall how they had Tyrone in the cross-hairs, all figured out and ripe for the plucking this time last year and also four years ago, only to see the Tyrone game-plan evolve beyond their comprehension. They will note how Tyrone played the final game of 2008 without fear and how they didn’t flinch or falter, even though retribution was on the cards and in the air all week in the build up. Kerry must do likewise. The closing of all gates and doors in Fitzgerald Stadium since the semi-final against Meath suggests Kerry have something up their sleeve and I’ve never seen less fanfare in the county ahead of a final.
The coiled spring performance of the Dublin quarter-final is unlikely to ever again be witnessed but the potential for surprise remains and the anticipation of possible retribution from Cork for other Croke Park days is certainly heightened.
Surprise and retribution are key components of all those awful slasher B-movies too. In quieter moments some of the longer serving members of the Cork panel may still be visited by familiar visions of Gooch, Galvin, O’Sullivan et al removing the knife from the back to embark on one last rampage.
If any trace of such uncertainty still exists, Kerry will exploit it whenever the chance presents itself. For all those with an appetite for such a thing, Sunday will be compulsive viewing.
For all others, avert your eyes, it may take different forms.!
