Michael Moynihan: 22 observations from the first game of '22
Goalkeeper Ger Collins (Ballinhassig) in action for Cork against UCC. Pic: Larry Cummins ECHO/Examiner Sport. Canon O'Brien Cup - University College Cork (UCC) vs Cork at Mardyke Sports Grounds on Friday 14th January 2022.
Your columnist was at the Canon O’Brien Cup game last Friday evening in the Marydke (Cork beat UCC 1-17 to 1-15). Impressions?
1
Intercounty hurlers’ striking is . A few sliotars must have ended up in the Western Road even from the warm-up.
2
Overheard:
“That’s Hoggy, la.”
“His name is Patrick.”
3
Seeing intercounty hurlers strike the ball is even more impressive when you’re on the sideline, as I was on Friday. The sound itself makes an impression: at one point I thought Tim O’Mahony was making the ball whine when he hit it.
4
Being on the sideline isn’t all it’s cracked up to be at times. The Cork sub who had a nosebleed in the warm-up seemed unperturbed, but one or two kids in the crowd paled and moved away when he came over to the dugout for medical treatment.
5
In fact, being on the sideline can be fairly dangerous. At one stage in the second half a Cork player charged upfield to support a teammate and dodged around an opponent - and out over the whitewash - for the return pass.
Your columnist had to hop rapidly to avoid being landed into the dugout. Still got the side-step!
6
Mark Keane is a very big chap. So is Robert Downey.
7
People are keen to see games. Parking was at a premium in the narrow roads around the Mardyke and Fitzgerald’s Park an hour before the throw-in.
8
One or two of the participants last Friday evening got what I would unequivocally call a sickener, the sound of which reverberated around the field. They got up and carried on, mostly, without a backward glance.
9
Cork had nice white jerseys, but UCC still take the cake when it comes to classy tops (a close-run thing with the Glen Rovers jersey for no. 1). How those skull and bones tops aren’t all stolen after every game baffles me.
10
Why wasn't there a coffee truck on hand? I was .
11
Between Will Henn and the Boylans, all of Na Piarsaigh in Limerick, Kilmallock’s achievement in winning that county title appeared all the more commendable, if you follow.
12
Credit to UCC for including a charity collection for this annual game. On this occasion it was the collection by Carrigtwohill St Vincent de Paul SVP in memory of the late Margot Hartnett.
13
The scoreboard needs to be higher at the dressing-room end.
14
It’s interesting that the ‘ruck’ is a distant academic matter when you’re in the stand or the press box. When it’s five yards away and the snorting, reefing, colliding, splintering, cursing, skinning and flaking are all distinctly audible, it makes a lot of the ‘one good belt would sort that out’ talk sound hollow.
15
The attractions of a game like last Friday’s are many, but surely the opportunity for kids to mingle with players afterwards is a big draw. Cold as it was, all who were prevailed upon for selfies and hurley-signing obliged.
16
Yellow sliotars? Not convinced, but the ball was visible in the floodlights.
17
The Western Star is gone? Why wasn’t I told?
18
Ger Millerick is a fine hurler but even he couldn't be on two teams at once, despite what the programme suggested.
19
I missed the trophy presentation. Apologies.
20
Absent friends weren’t forgotten. Before the game the PA asked that the late Val Cooke be remembered by those in attendance.
21
Patrick Horgan came on late as a sub. I hope the stickler for names behind me was happy.
22
More games to come, thankfully.
Much obliged to the good folks at 99% Invisible, one of the must-listen podcasts (and must-read books, The 99% Invisible City) for an interesting question they raised recently.
Namely, who should be on the NBA logo?
If you have an interest in basketball you can probably recall there’s an existing logo with a player. As Chris Traube wrote for the 99% website: “Jerry West was one of the greatest basketball players of the 1960s, and famously played for the LA Lakers. So it made sense for him to be the logo for that time, though the NBA has never acknowledged it’s him (presumably for legal reasons).
“Still, it’s obvious from looking at reference photos. West has even been nicknamed “The Logo.” People still come up to him in the street, calling him by this odd moniker.” Now, over fifty years later, should West be replaced? That’s an argument for in-depth discussion over a refreshing libation, maybe, but it sent me to some of our own sports and their logos.
The GAA, IRFU, FAI and Camogie Association? All abstract representations. The same for Basketball Ireland, Rowing Ireland, Athletics Ireland and Hockey Ireland.
The only exception I found was the LGFA, which has a stylised representation of a player going for a high ball, but it’s not anyone identifiable.
Would these sports be better off with identifiable player logos? Or are they as well to avoid the necessary ‘why didn’t you pick X instead of Y’?
Yours truly was out and about briefly on Tuesday night, a chilly evening in my neighbourhood on Leeside. Not quite as chilly as the following evening, when freezing fog made the far side of the pitch in the MTU Cork-UCC Sigerson game a land of mystery, but chilly nonetheless.
A friend pointed me towards air quality readings, which are publicly available through social media, and while my experience of chemistry goes back four decades to the ancient lab in the old AG, those readings made for grim reading. One table suggested susceptible members of the public might experience serious effects on their health as a result of exposure last Tuesday evening.
That was also the night Cork and Waterford played a McGrath Cup game in Páirc Uí Rinn, slap bang in the middle of this toxic air.
Granted, you’re talking about young fit athletes in the fullness of their health, but is this not a counter-productive move, to have players line out in a (literally) toxic atmosphere? That’s not even getting into how advisable it is for supporters to spend an hour and a half inhaling poor quality air.
More on this at a future date.
Better late than never, but I finally got around to by Roisin Kiberd in the last couple of weeks. If I say it’s a collection of essays which track Kiberd’s engagement with online life, and the tech scene, such as it is, it mightn’t sound that inviting.
That’s underselling the book, though. As a guide to a world you’re vaguely aware of - one with 24-hour gyms, with a ranking system for the strange allure of the hyper caffeinated energy drink, and with the idea of your personal data and what that is - it’s terrific.
One to digest at your leisure.
Contact: michael.moynihan@examiner.ie
