Peace breaks out as fierce rivals regroup
Most of the indications are the Kerry-Tyrone rivalry has hit a trough on the intensity graph. Either that or they’re just playing for time as they take a breather.
This marks Tyrone’s first visit to Killarney since 2012 when Kerry supporters stayed back in their droves to applaud and sympathise with Mickey Harte, who had tragically lost his daughter Michaela the previous year.
Would Kerry have been so generous of spirit had Harte’s side softened their coughs for a fourth time of asking? But that probably misses the point. The symbolism of that scene spoke volumes.
The following December, Harte was one of the first mourners at Páidí Ó Sé’s wake.
In Healy Park last April, a queue of photograph and autograph hunters formed on the pitch in front of Páidí’s nephew Tomás after a crunch final round win for Kerry.
Relations between the counties have probably never been as good as they are now. That it has happened at a time when both sides are regrouping and reassessing is most likely not coincidental.
But then the back channels were always operational. Last weekend and almost 10 years to the day that he and his brothers attended Cormac McAnallen’s funeral, Ó Sé was in Tyrone again, attending Moy’s celebration of his old adversary Philip Jordan’s and Ryan Mellon’s football careers.
Seán Cavanagh had contacted Ó Sé and he didn’t hesitate in confirming he’d be there. Ó Sé and Jordan’s mutual respect stemmed back to 2003 but their friendship spawned two years later on the International Rules tour in Australia. In his book last year, Owen Mulligan goes into details of his drinking escapades during that series. However, he had company before the second test. “I wasn’t the only one drinking that second week,” he recalled. “A few other boys enjoyed themselves too, though maybe not to the same level that I was at. People thought the Tyrone and Kerry lads wouldn’t mix, but we mixed too well. I had good craic with Tomás Ó Sé, the Gooch Cooper and Eoin Brosnan.”
Between them, there were 10 Tyrone and Kerry players on that trip. Two months earlier, they had vied for the spotlight on the biggest stage; 12,000 miles away they were vying for elbow space at the bar.
Every Saturday, the Newstalk’s Off The Ball panel opens with a collection of quotes to music, one of them had Anthony Daly quoting Ó Sé saying he was sick of “that northern crew — if they went set-dancing twice a week we’d all be set-dancing twice a week”.
Ó Sé doesn’t deny saying it but his point was more about how much influence All-Ireland champions have on other teams. Having gotten to know so many Tyrone players in Oz, he grew to like them as much as admire them.
“I wouldn’t have known them at all until we went out to Australia and there was a great togetherness on that trip. There was a social side to it as well and I got to know them very well and they were decent, sound lads.
“Maybe a player or two down through the years has come out and said something, and a couple of things happened on the field. But in reality nothing really happened on the field.
“There was nothing like Meath and Cork where there was something simmering underneath and could go out of control at any stage.
“The Tyrone players never disrespected us off the field or anything like that. Publicly, Kerry fellas weren’t coming out in waves and going out of their way to say they had respect for them but quietly we did.”
As Ó Sé’s file of Tyrone supporters displayed, last year’s final round game in Healy Park never lived up to its billing as a grudge match. The sulphur of the Finuge-Cookstown All-Ireland intermediate final two months previous was still in the air, as was Tyrone secretary Dominic McCaughey’s quip about the histrionics of some Kerry players in celebrating the 2012 qualifier victory. Ó Sé knew how some in the county dressed the win up to be something it wasn’t. He had never lost a Championship game in Fitzgerald Stadium. “That was more important than beating Tyrone. They added spice but it was more about the venue than the opposition.”
Tomorrow comes only a few months after Mulligan’s book in which he goaded Kerry, spoke of the disdain between the camps during the 2000s and claimed he was subjected to on-field sectarian abuse in the 2008 final. This past week, Ryan McMenamin reminded Tyrone they, like last year, have a good chance of relegating Kerry to Division 2.
Another time, another place, such words would have been combustible. All bar Marc Ó Sé, David Moran and Bryan Sheehan on the named Kerry team have lost to Tyrone in the Championship.
Neville Chamberlain we won’t be but at this very moment there is peace.
