Losing like champs is only half the battle
The Galway hurlers, for instance, don’t seem to know how to lose, as strange as that might read.
Three of their last four championship defeats have been pitiful, epitomised by one of their veterans following through to clip a young Waterford sub whose goal deservedly extended the winners’ margin of victory to double digits in Thurles last Sunday week.
Red Auerbach was renowned for lighting a cigar as his Boston Celtics teams would close in on another famous victory, but on losing he said something just as indelible: “If you’re going to lose,” he’d tell his players, “lose like champions.”
Kildare under Kieran McGeeney might not have won any silverware but they at least lost like champions.
A few years ago we’d have used a rugby analogy to make the distinction — the way Munster lose and the way Leinster lose, and though they’re from Leinster, it’d be fair to say Kildare lose the Munster way.
Since McGeeney’s first championship defeat as a manager — the 2008 loss to Wicklow when he and the team were only getting to know each other — the only other time they’ve lost rather tamely was in last year’s Leinster championship to Louth — and even then they ran up 1-16 and contributed to an entertaining evening’s football. Against Cork in 08, the Dubs and Tyrone in 09, Down in 2010; and Dublin and Donegal in 2011, Kildare died with their boots on.
For all their heroism and misfortune, however, some of that misfortune has being overplayed. We particularly felt sorry for them after this year’s Leinster semi-final to Dublin; no game of such magnitude should have been decided by such a dubious call in injury-time. But last weekend’s defeat to Donegal and indeed last year’s championship exit to Down do not fall into the same category.
Against Dublin they had no time to respond from Bernard Brogan’s late free. But against Down they had 58 minutes to respond to Benny Coulter’s infamous goal. Tomás O’Connor’s disallowed goal came with still 30 minutes of normal time to play last Saturday.
Those moments, while momentum shifters, weren’t necessarily game deciders.
McGeeney would have had a high regard for the England rugby team that won the 2003 World Cup. In his book, Winning, Woodward gave a revealing insight into that England setup and there’s one particular passage that his current Kildare team need to take on board. After another heartbreaking narrow defeat decided on a dubious refereeing decision, Woodward wrote: “The fact is that to be Number One you really need to win by a margin wide enough to rule out any question of a bad call here or there influencing the outcome of the game.”
It’s easier said than done, of course. Kildare might have blown some decent teams away over the last couple of years but they’re hardly constituted to beat a fellow top-eight team the way a Kerry can do in their pomp. Still, there’s a lot in what Woodward says. In the 2009 All-Ireland semi-final, Alan O’Connor was wrongly sent off against Tyrone just before half time yet Cork had created a margin wide enough to ensure it didn’t matter.
A famous college football coach used to say that life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.
We thought of that line a lot when we used to watch Donegal play McGeeney’sArmagh. We distinctly remember an agitated Brian McEniff after an ill-tempered Ulster championship replay when his side had been beaten by 10 points, complaining bitterly about the referee not awarding Brendan Devenney a free, instead letting play go on and Devenney kick a wide. “There’s no advantage in our game!” McEniff accurately pointed out. But the Devenney incident happened in the 10th minute! Donegal had 60 minutes to get over it.
Instead they lost their discipline — and the match comprehensively.
This Donegal team keep their composure, and to be fair, Kildare have too in the face of most setbacks and bad calls — at least on the field anyway. But while they may well have won if O’Connor’s goal had stood, that is not why they lost.
They lost because somehow Donegal showed even more admirable nerve and spirit than Kildare’s own commendable nerve and spirit.
We hope McGeeney and Kildare stick with it. It took Woodward’s England six painful years to win their first Grand Slam, Munster the same to win the European Cup.
But to get their reward, Kildare would be well served getting rid of their victim complex first.
* Contact: kieranshannon@eircom.net
