John Fogarty: The shadow of an All-Ireland win was never as long
BACK THEN: Kerry’s Seán O’Shea celebrates with the Sam Maguire after the All-Ireland final last July — 170 days ago. Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
Boy does the split season have a lot to answer for. David Clifford intimated on Saturday he mightn’t be in a position to win a sixth straight final this weekend were it not for the compartmentalisation of the 2022-23 Gaelic football year.
“A lot easier this year, in fairness,” he said of his multiple commitments. “Like, every other year you would have been playing a game here and there, whatever, then coming back to Kerry and maybe training once a week. Whereas, the nature of the split season, you were able to give your sole focus to one of them.”
Lee Keegan obviously felt differently about his own situation, but it may just be that David Moran reckons a 16th tilt with Kerry isn’t such a drain when at most it would occupy him up until the end of July, save a replay. And that excludes a current break and likely the carrot of being eased back in the latter stages of the league. Again, the split season makes playing that bit more manageable.
If it seems like Kerry have been champions for an inordinate amount of time — 170 days and counting to be precise — that would also be down to the split season. By the time they begin the defence of the Munster Championship in April, it will be 273.
It isn’t just the early finish but the contracted duration of the championship that lengthens its shadow. Between their opener against Cork in Páirc Uí Rinn and ousting Galway, there were 78 days, one day fewer than the county’s All-Ireland SFC winning campaign of 1980 that comprised three matches. 20% of the year to compete in a championship, 40% to dine out on winning it.
Sure, there were a full 463 days between Dublin’s 2019 and ‘20 successes but so much of the commentary in the interim was occupied by the prospect of there being no 2020 championship at all due to Covid. The transfer of power between Jim Gavin and Dessie Farrell was regarded as another interruption as much as Farrell oversaw the historic sixth straight title.
Most discussion since Kerry overcame Galway has comprised words of praise for a team full of potential finally fulfilling it and slaying Dublin and a manager working the oracle for a third time. From the now legendary status attached to Seán O’Shea’s winning free in that semi-final to the team holiday to Dubai and Mauritius in early December to Jack O’Connor presenting the Sam Maguire Cup at the altar of the Glen church in Ballinskelligs on Christmas Eve, Kerry have made the most of their title. Not so much milked it as been afforded ample time to celebrate it.
O’Connor’s appearance with the treasured chalice alongside Fr Patsy Lynch came a full five months after it was first raised by O’Shea and Joe O’Connor last July. You couldn’t imagine him doing the same five months after a traditional September final date in the middle of a Division 1 run.
O’Connor is too wily not to realise Kerry have been on the perch for a strangely long time for one All-Ireland. Too cute not to consider it may complicate his objective of becoming the first Kerry manager since Mick O’Dwyer to put together back-to-back titles.
“Can fellows go to the well again or do they live off the fat of the land and keep thinking back to last year?” he asked last week.
In that regard, Tony Griffin’s expertise will be leaned on just as Caroline Currid’s will be once more in Limerick where they have been kingpins in hurling a week longer than Kerry – 177 days, or 758 if you back to that December final of 2020. At this stage, they are all too familiar with being recognised as the team to beat.
In his interview with Larry Ryan in this newspaper last week, Gearóid Hegarty touched on how Limerick recognise the perception of them has moved from being bridesmaids going into the 2018 final to the envied – “Everybody begrudges us now. But that’s the team you want to be.”
Hegarty’s manager John Kiely spoke about the same subject a day after beating Kilkenny in July: “Sure listen, it’s only natural. Jesus, when Kilkenny were in their pomp and winning all these All-Irelands, we were all saying, ‘God, wouldn’t it be great for a change for somebody else to come along’. I’ve been there, I’ve been that supporter.”
He added: “We knew this year the neutrals had all shifted to one position and it’s not unexpected but it takes managing mentality-wise – how do you cope with that knowing that you’re on your own basically and people would like to see a change?”
Kerry, like the great Kilkenny and Dublin teams of recent times, are accustomed to losing their flavour outside their borders soon after success. What they aren’t so acquainted with is a triumph that feels like it was achieved eons ago yet its fanfare endures.
Causes for genuine sadness and reflection in the north-west, the confirmed departures of Murphy and now Keegan from the main stage coming in quick succession are body blows to the game.
Such a collective loss is not something the GAA has experienced before, at least not beyond one county. Besides, retiring or being able or given the opportunity to quit on one’s own terms is a relatively new phenomenon. Traditional as media was back in 1987, the exits of Kerry eight-time All-Ireland winners Ogie Moran, Páidí Ó Sé, and Mikey Sheehy didn’t cause so much of a stir. Ger Power and Pat Spillane, the other two of the glittering quintet, soldiered on a little longer.
In 2021, five of Dublin’s seven eight-timers, Stephen Cluxton, Michael Darragh Macauley, Philly McMahon, Kevin McManamon, and Cian O’Sullivan finished up across the year. However, as Cluxton was by then the only guaranteed starter and his unavailability was confirmed for that season, their exodus marked more an end of an era than a cost to Gaelic football.
Between December 2014 and March ‘15, inter-county hurling bade farewell to Tipp maestro Eoin Kelly and Kilkenny colossus Henry Shefflin. Their departures hit home. It may be recency bias but the snap combination of Keegan and Murphy’s farewells strikes harder.
It may turn out that Davy Burke is not making a rod for his own back, but without having yet overseen a competitive game as Roscommon manager, he is heaping pressure on himself.
Whether he meant to criticise players or his predecessor Anthony Cunningham — a manager who twice earned promotion to Division 1 and brought them to a Connacht title in 2019 — that’s how some of his comments read when they were published last week.
“It’s the single biggest thing,” he said of Roscommon’s need for consistency.
“It stems from training, the inconsistent levels of training. Whatever you do on a Tuesday and Thursday, you’ll do on a Sunday. I’m a firm believer in that.”
He continued: “You must turn up every night and train to a certain standard every night and if you do that, you will be a better team on the Sunday.
“It’s as simple as that. I don’t know because I wasn’t involved but I’d say it was a little bit peak and trough. Up tonight, down tomorrow and that just doesn’t work. It might explain it. Now maybe I am wrong.”
Recalling the county’s qualifier exit to Clare last season, he said: “[I]n my opinion they need to be shaken up.
“The team looked like you could see the same 16, 17, 18 ... I would have been at the Clare game myself, just looking at it, and I nearly knew who was coming on and I had nothing to do with Roscommon, you know that kind of way?”
Burke was in charge of Wicklow when they were promoted from Division 4 and the following year when they beat Cavan to avoid relegation from Division 3.
Having guided his native Kildare to an All-Ireland U20 triumph and Sarsfields to a senior county title, Burke gets a tune out of teams. But he could have made his start in Roscommon a whole lot easier.
