Bernard Brogan can still make his doubters eat their words
He may trade on consistency when it comes to the game of Gaelic football and how he likes it played, but his views on those who play it can waver.
His comments on Gooch’s inter-county career on League Sunday couldn’t be more different than the eulogy he paid Cooper’s Kerry era on RTÉ Radio last Tuesday morning.
On Sunday, he compared the reaction to the Killarney man’s retirement to the outpouring that followed Princess Diana’s death.
If that was the case, then the claim he made to Seán O’Rourke that poems should be written about Cooper makes him Elton John.
Brolly may call such diametrically opposing views as nuance, but it’s not. It’s contradiction. To be fair, he has questioned Cooper on a number of occasions.
In 2012, he lashed Cooper’s performance for Dr Crokes against Crossmaglen in an All-Ireland semi-final. “An American tourist would never have believed it if you’d told him ‘The Gooch’ was one of the greats. If, however, you’d told him he was a choker, he would have agreed, since that is what Colm did against Cross. As their key man floundered, so did his team-mates.”
Memories of that and other digs made his adulating tribute in the immediate wake of his announcement so peculiar. Did he feel it was too soon to be castigating arguably the most loved footballer in the country?
What will be lost in the reaction to Brolly’s subsequent remarks and Sunday Independent column on Cooper is that as he trampled over the retirement of one elite player, he was announcing another’s: Bernard Brogan.
“I mean, the young will rise as the old doth fall,” said Brolly, paraphrasing Shakespeare’s King Lear. “I just think it’s Bernard’s time. His time has come and gone. He was one of the great forwards.
“There it is. That’s life.”
Fellow analyst Ciaran Whelan, with no shortage of justification, emphasised that the quality of ball that came Brogan’s way (in Sunday’s league final) was poor. We counted three plays in the early part of the second half that were overcooked, making it virtually impossible to collect.
Brolly countered: “He wasn’t making the runs. You could see him thinking, ‘I can’t beat him to the ball’. He was hoping that things were happening around him.”
Kerry’s full-back line put in a terrific shift, but Jim Gavin, no slouch in recognising an underperforming player and replacing him, would have called Brogan ashore instead of Paddy Andrews had he believed his lack of influence was in any way the 2009 footballer of the year’s own fault. But for Jonathan Lyne’s foul, Brogan’s inside movement from a Paul Flynn pass to supply an on-running Diarmuid Connolly would have been lauded.
Having turned 33 yesterday week and being benched for last year’s All-Ireland final replay after an admittedly disappointing display in the drawn game, there is a growing determination to announce Brogan is finished.
The imminent rise of Con O’Callaghan has accelerated the view that his days are numbered. The leaves may be falling on his time as a Dublin footballer, but as Gavin holds himself accountable for Sunday’s team selection, he will hardly rue starting Brogan. In his two previous starts this year, he scored 1-4.
It is almost certainly Brogan’s final season as a Dublin footballer but to question his relevancy is not accurate. To make this team under a manager as ruthless as Gavin should suffice, but Brolly expects better. In fact, he expects perfection.
On Sunday, he wrote that Cooper was tied up after his awesome first half in the 2013 All-Ireland semi-final. “Cian O’Sullivan picked him up in the second half, and marked him tightly. Again, come business time, Colm was anonymous.” The inconvenience of that commentary is Cooper assisted Kerry’s last three scores and, while his influence wasn’t anything like it was in the first half, he was still contributing. Still, it wasn’t good enough in the Derryman’s eyes. The type of analysis Brolly provides, while entertaining and in keeping with what would have already been repeated between barstools across the capital in the wake of the game, is founded more in absolutes than he would like to think. Holding these great sportsmen to the same standards that arrest their own minds isn’t particularly healthy for them or us if we are to believe that they must, without skipping a beat, hit wondrous heights to be considered great.
Nobody is saying what the majority believe shouldn’t be questioned but those in the minority too must take time to pause and reflect. It was Kieran Donaghy who in 2014 told Brolly in no uncertain terms that, contrary to his assertion, the Kerry conveyor belt was back up and operational again. As Dublin begin this championship anew, don’t be surprised if Brogan is next to ask Brolly if he “likes them apples”.
- john.fogarty@examiner.ie
One battle Gavin won
Jim Gavin may not have been triumphant on Sunday but he might claim to have won another battle in the Croke Park media conference room afterwards when a journalist simply asked him what he thought of Éamonn Fitzmaurice’s pre-match comments.
He said: “Every manager is doing the right thing for his team and certainly if you’re putting me on the spot to try and talk ill about Éamonn Fitzmaurice, I certainly ain’t going to do it. I have nothing but the height of regard for Éamonn and he’s an absolute gentleman. I certainly won’t be speaking ill, if that’s what you’re trying to get me to do.”
When the writer attempted to interject and state that he wasn’t, Gavin continued: “In terms of the county of Kerry, I have nothing but admiration and warmth for that county and I certainly won’t be speaking ill of any Kerry player or this Kerry team. I have nothing but admiration for what they give for their county and for the Gaelic Athletic Association. So fantastic performance by Kerry, deserved winners and we’ll move on and I’m sure they will as well.”
Talk about spinning a question. Gavin may be a stranger to defeat but he most definitely wasn’t going to lose again so soon after inflicting a reverse. He knows Fitzmaurice can only play the narrative card the once but then he may have to dim the bright light in which he colours his team’s discipline, especially when it hurt them dearly early in Sunday’s second half.
Welcome signs of change in the air
We can’t say we agreed with their decision to fix their provincial U21 final between Derry and Donegal for Armagh’s Athletic Grounds at 8pm last night but Ulster secretary Brian McAvoy must be praised for his recent comments about the senior football championship structure.
“I think there’s still a place in most people’s hearts for the provincial championships. If it was the wish of the clubs and counties to change that, the provincial council would row in behind them,” he told The Irish News last week. “I wouldn’t stand in the way of it but I don’t see it as an issue, I don’t see it as something on the horizon.”
His late predecessor Danny Murphy always made a good case for the tradition of proximity appeal of the provincial championships and that can’t be overlooked but it appears McAvoy senses a change in the wind.
Already, there are developing football counties coming around to the idea that a tier championship is the way to go. Anybody watching the Division 2 or 3 finals this past weekend would appreciate they are a far cry in intensity from what Dublin and Kerry served up.
McAvoy’s comments come at a time when the Club Players Association and the GAA are believed to be making good progress in finding common ground about how the fixtures calendar can be improved.
The Super 8 may be an awkward and elitist means of introducing a tiered championship but recognising there are varying standards — as the league does — will only improve the game’s premier competition.
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