Underdog no more
In fact, Cork’s built-like-a-brick-outhouse powerhouse has been waiting to happen since, well, whenever.
“People think he was a late bloomer, but everyone in the club would say he just wasn’t spotted,” says his Aghada club-mate Paul Kilbane.
Ronan Dwane, another Aghada stalwart, concurs. “There’d be a view in the club he was good enough for the county well before he got called up.”
Maybe that’s why he seems a sophomore going on 30. And why we always presumed he had nothing to say for himself when, in fact, he just took the Fifth and let his mum, Peg, do the yapping for him.
“He’s shy by nature — but only if you don’t know him,” says Dwane.
Well, let’s get to know him because in the anodyne orbit of the GAA summer, we need all the lucid articulation we can stick our dictaphones in front of.
You seem to have become a team leader quite quickly, we say, hovering momentarily over the thought of him getting in Darragh Ó Sé’s face and under his skin not once, but twice, last season.
“Well, the more games you play, the more is expected of you and I try to deliver on that. I didn’t do that against Limerick, mind you.”
No? “I didn’t play well against Limerick but I was against a man who was better than me (Stephen Lucey) on the day, and that’s it. If I was looking from the outside I’d say we were well beaten in the half-forward line against Limerick. All we can do is try rectify that. Just because you are beaten in one line doesn’t mean you tear the whole thing up and start from scratch. But we did not play well the last day.”
Spoken like a leader.
“Look, if you are looking for leadership at inter-county level, then your kinda stuck, aren’t you? If you’re looking at the corner forward and he’s looking for leadership from out the field, then that’s not going to work. Every fella has to be confident in his own ability to do well. Look at Tyrone, how many fellas could you single out as leaders? Not many because they are all leaders, they’re all good players and they all deliver.”
You’re warming to him already, aren’t ya?
Pearse O’Neill’s hurry-up Cork career only began four summers ago, and even that looked unlikely a month before from his vantage point of Australia’s west coast.
Fleeting fame with The Underdogs had come and gone, and when Aghada went under to Nemo Rangers in a county semi-final O’Neill, the aforementioned Kilbane and Gerard Melvin high-tailed it.
“We went to San Francisco first,” recalls Kilbane, “then to Vegas for a couple of nights, onto San Diego and up Route 101 to Los Angeles. Then we headed for Sydney.”
The trio rented a wagon and drove up the east coast to Cairns. They were across the country in Perth before long.
“He was looking after himself then, even when there was no obvious need for fitness,” Kilbane says. “He’d be fierce dedicated like that. We played a small bit of football in Western Australia, but Pearse would have been minding himself either way.”
Ronan Dwane says O’Neill would always have been seen as a leader in Aghada, with an ideal tutor.
“Everyone in Aghada would look up to Conor (Counihan). There is just unqualified respect and admiration in the club not because he was always, you know, Our Cork Footballer, but because he was such a big club man.
“Even today, he’s still keeping an eye on things. He would have been in charge of the seniors at an important time for Pearse.”
Counihan took a call from his old mate, Mickey Ned O’Sullivan 18 months before O’Neill’s Cork debut, looking for help. O’Sullivan was in charge of the TG4 Underdogs and one of their targeted midfielders, Kieran Donaghy from Austin Stacks in Tralee (you may know him) was injured.
“Conor said ‘I have the fella for you’,” Mickey Ned recalls. “We brought Pearse in for a trial, and then a challenge game against Limerick in Newtownshandrum. He wasn’t as good then, but you could tell straight away he had the raw materials — big, strong, a great grafter, plus he had the added bonus of being from good, solid Caherciveen and Republican stock. I also remember thinking that he had a really good attitude.”
Which might explain why Cork’s centre forward at Croke Park tomorrow isn’t about to get cosy or complacent in Rebel red. Like, where’s my motif-ed towel.
“I wouldn’t describe myself as a ‘comfortable’ inter-county player now, even after four years,” O’Neill shrugs. “Like, I still have the edge and the determination to do my very best. Nor am I ‘ah shure isn’t it great playing for Cork’. I always want to improve. Conor (Counihan) has always been a one-game-at-a-time man, and fine if we progress beyond Sunday, then we can start thinking about a semi-final. But if we don’t, I can assure you it won’t be because of complacency. What right have we to be looking at September? Any team that looks at the game after the next one, won’t be getting very far.”
Ronan Dwane says that even Aghada’s hurling diehards would accept that Pearse O’Neill was “always a footballer”, but adds the obligatory rider: “If he’d concentrated on the hurling, he’d be doing the job that Aisake (Ó hAilpín) is doing for Cork at the moment.
“The O’Neills are from Lahard, which is a football stronghold in the parish, all his family were football.”
Whatever of his development as an Aghada footballer, it would appear O’Neill never advertised his talents beyond the confines of the club.
He never played under age football with the Imokilly division, much less Cork, and was in sixth year at Midleton CBS before he made the Corn Uí Mhuiri squad. They lost the opening round game. Consequently, Cork minor selectors were largely oblivious to his potential, and though he was an unused sub for the Cork U21s, in four years at UCC he never pucked a ball for the Fitzgibbon Cup team or kicked one in the Sigerson Cup.
“That just about sums him up,” reckons Ronan Dwane. “He wouldn’t be going knocking on anyone’s door. If it came, fine...”
It was a stop-start period for O’Neill. In his first Cork senior football championship game for Aghada as a 19-year-old against St Nicks a decade ago, his arm was broken by a colleague, Jim Motherway.
When he returned from Australia in the summer of 2006, he was already on Billy Morgan’s radar. Three years later, he’s had three All-Ireland semi finals, a final, and represented his country in last autumn’s International Rules series in Australia. Back for a working visit.
Tomorrow he’s back to another favoured stomping ground for business with some acquaintances.
“Donegal will be tough, we played them in 2006, it was my first game in Croke Park. We beat them by a point, I don’t think it was a great game from what I can remember of it, but they have nearly their whole backline still playing from that day, and the likes of Michael Murphy and Colm McFadden, who, from watching the game against Galway, will take serious minding.
“I don’t feel we’re under any extra pressure (as favourites). There’s pressure on, there’s pressure playing for Cork all the time, and we put pressure on ourselves to win, but there’s no more or no less being provincial champions.”
They earned that crown for the third time in four years by squeezing out an uncomfortable, unimpressive win against Mickey Ned’s Limerick last month, but hindsight offers upsides.
“Limerick were way more intense and hungry, but we snuck out of it in the end. We ground it out. I’d take that any day of the week. I don’t think we’re as good as we were being built up after the Kerry game. If we had beaten them and gone straight into a quarter-final, the hype now would be ferocious altogether,” O’Neill says.
“We know what our good points are, what our bad points are, if you’re relying on what’s written to get yourself motivated or de-motivated, you’re only wasting your time.”
Nevertheless, he’s kept a weather eye on his neighbours from across the county bounds, and notes that they are still breathing, albeit barely.
“In that (Munster semi final) replay, we played very well in the first half, we kind of stuttered a bit, and we just got the momentum.
“It’s hard for Kerry in that situation, we got the momentum 15 minutes into the second half and we just kept going. I know myself, when you’re against that sometimes, when a team gets the momentum on you, every break they pick up, we just rolled. (But) it was a Munster semi-final at the end of the day, a means to an end to win a Munster title.” Lazily perceived as a frustrated midfielder, O’Neill has been sited on the 40 for club and county this season. Naturally he’d prefer to be heading towards the opposition goal all the time — “cos if not it means you’re chasing a defender back the field”, he smiles — but he recognises the need for balance.
“Conor has focused a good bit on putting pressure on defenders coming out with the ball, like Tyrone. That’s something we try and do as much as possible, even though against Limerick we probably let them out too easily but that’s something we try as a unit to do.”
Besides, he’s more than happy watching Nick Murphy and Alan O’Connor dominate the skies over Croke Park, as they did in the League Two final victory over Monaghan.
“Alan’s a great bit of stuff, hard as nails, tremendous work ethic, the kind of fella you would want in your team every day of the week,” O’Neill explains.
“He’s Conor’s type of player — works hard, no frills, does exactly what it says on the tin. He’s a real inspirational player, coming into his prime.”
Remind you of someone else?
