Home and away: The adventures of Liam and Sam
With the national leagues up and running, are players in Cork and Tipperary still on the chicken-in-a-basket circuit with Sam and Liam?
Missing training to pose for photos?
Our curiosity was piqued. We got out the phone book.
“The new year was the cut-off for us,” said Ger Ryan, Tipp County Board PRO. “We haven’t had players out and about really with the cup since then.
“It went to the States last weekend but Declan Fanning and Liam Sheedy brought it, and they’re not involved any more, obviously. That’s handy because it frees up the other players. I’m not sure when Croke Park need it back – unfortunately we don’t have enough recent experience with it to know that exact date!”
Fair enough. But Tipp had a 10-year absence, almost; for Sam Maguire it was two decades’ exile from Cork. Has the big cup gone into a cupboard yet on Leeside?
“It’ll continue to go out on public engagements,” said Cork PRO Ger Lane, “But it could be me bringing it out, or Donal McCarthy from the backroom team, who’s in charge of it. It’d have gone to Aghinagh recently but we wouldn’t be forcing players to do it.
“If it’s their own club or they have a tie to the organisation or the function fair enough, but last year is last year, really.”
Lane acknowledged that there’s a hunger for a piece of the cup that must be accommodated also.
“There has to be a reality involved as well. It’s 20 years since we won it, and if we were lucky enough to win it next year the demand wouldn’t be nearly as high.
“You wouldn’t have a tenth of the excitement, I’d imagine.”
Well, maybe. Or, according to Peter Twiss of the Kerry County Board, maybe not. They’ve seen plenty of Sam in the Kingdom in recent years, but Twiss says the appetite is as keen as ever.
“There’s massive demand for the cup, it’s unbelievable. We’d open a diary when we’re lucky enough to win it and it fills fairly quickly, but we try to call a halt when the championship starts the following year. We close the book then.”
Come on – it’s been a pretty regular visitor in the last 10 years. “I couldn’t believe it last year, the level of demand,” said Twiss. “You’d think people would calm down about it but I suppose it’s iconic. We do the schools before Christmas but it wouldn’t calm down after that.
“Last year when we were returning the trophy we had to cut short a function to get it back up to Dublin. In fact, we’d have asked Croke Park to hang onto it for an extra week, there was a big function coming up we wanted it for.”
When do the players step back, then? Twiss says they follow a similar template to the Tipperary lads.
“Jack (O’Connor) would be insisting on that (players stepping back) and you’d use a lad just retired, maybe, to bring it to functions. But Jack would say ‘that’s it’ and that’s it, though the players would know that anyway, they’re experienced enough.
“If the cup’s promised to someone we manage it, it’s delivered or something, we help the players out. But in our experience they don’t get caught up in it or anything.”
There was one obvious call to make it, so we inputted the number of Ned Quinn of the Kilkenny County Board. Surely a four-in-a-row dulls the taste? “No, there was as much demand every year for it – and not just in Kilkenny either, all around the country.
“Round about now the players would be stepping back from that scene, though you wouldn’t have to tell them – and if they wanted to bring it to a special function or anything, you wouldn’t stop them. They’re experienced enough with it.”
Unfortunately Ned couldn’t talk for too long. Kilkenny had a final to play – the Walsh Cup – so there were other matters to attend to.
No need to make arrangements for the cup this time. September will be another matter.
* Contact: michael.moynihan@examiner.ie Twitter: MikeMoynihanEx
