Larry Ryan: Playing the long game for a love of hurling
DEDICATION: Jackie Connolly marks the starting line with sawdust at the 2006 All-Ireland Poc Fada final on Annaverna mountain in Ravensdale, Co Louth. Pic: Brian Lawless/Sportsfile
On Sunday in PĂĄirc UĂ Rinn, Cork will play Tipp and we wonât learn too much, whatever the managers get out of it. We wonât be any closer to knowing if Tipp are back. Or if Cork are getting there. But it is still Cork and Tipp. With its own lure and lore. Ger Cunningham will go in. To see how they are moving. And thereâs a time Jackie Connolly might have made it down.
On Tuesday, Ger and family made the long journey to Dundalk to pay a last visit to Jackie, a man who made many pilgrimages to see Cork v Tipp. Various tailbacks made the journey a lot longer back when they were both plotting the route regularly. Ger up to the Cooley Mountains. Jackie negotiating the old Mercedes to the PĂĄirc to indulge a great obsession with Cork hurling.
"Lots of people would travel far for Munster finals, but Jackie would be there for league matches, any kind of match," Ger says.Â
Ger won the All-Ireland Poc Fada Championship in the Cooley Mountains in Louth seven times in succession from 1984 to 1990 and every time he stayed with Jackie and his wife Peggy in their home. And he stayed there plenty more times when he didnât win it too.
He canât quite remember how the custom started, but he will never forget the hospitality. The welcome and friendliness and feeding. Jackie an endless torrent of questions about Cork greats and Cork clubs and Cork victories.
Whatever contingent landed with Ger were very welcome too. Friends and family. Tom Kingston, John Grainger, John Fitzgibbon. The house on the Dublin Road became an oasis of Corkness every August Bank Holiday.
Out on the mountain, Jackie swung into action, marshalling and guiding, locating sliotars in the heather, offering local knowledge on the terrain, spreading sawdust for the start line, and studiously supervising the finish.
Not that Jackie was just a man for the big occasion or the glamour postings. The rest of the year he would manage and coach teams with his beloved Naomh Moninne, who won seven Louth county titles in the 80s. Spreading the seeds of a love of hurling on terrain that was barren enough for that kind of crop.
It was after the 1989 Poc Fada that John Grainger returned to the Cork van before they left for home, rooting for the usual token of thanks for the hospitality. He pulled out a Tipperary jersey for Jackieâs son Collins, himself nearly ready for the senior ranks with Moninne. Collins probably had enough Cork gear at this stage, so was delighted with something more stylish.
The following March it so happened that Collins was visiting his sister in Toronto with plans to take in the hurling exhibition between All-Ireland champions Tipperary and an All-Star selection. That short-lived Skydome venture. Incidentally, in 1991, it was Cork who travelled as champions. Ger went head to head on the pitch with the Blue Jays slugger Kelly Gruber and drove the ball further with both bat and hurley. He remembers Gruber signed a contract for 11 million bucks the same week. A story next time for Jackie.
In 1990 though, it was Tipp out there representing. As Nicky English turned into the plane he noted one Blue and Gold jersey already seated on the aisles. Indeed as Nicky drew closer to this comrade, the jersey seemed curiously familiar. Down to the number 15 on the back. âHey, thatâs my Munster Final jerseyâ. Somehow, via the UCC connection, Grainger had got hold of it.Â
Finders keepers anyway, Nicky acknowledged. Collins Connolly wore his own county jersey many times too with Louth and eventually played in Croke Park himself in the 2008 Nicky Rackard Cup final against Sligo, aged 35. He made his presence felt too among hurling bluebloods, also wearing the jersey of Dicksboro in Kilkenny for many years after relocating for work.
As he joined the mourners from the tight Louth hurling community and beyond on Tuesday, Ger shared special memories with Collins as they laid Jackie to rest. He died, aged 90, last weekend, dearly loved by Peggy, Collins and his sisters Jacqueline, Caroline, and Lyndsey.
Ger remembered the time his own father died. Word didnât reach Louth immediately but then it was mentioned in a match commentary on radio the following Sunday. On the Monday Jackie and Peggy arrived in Cork at the Cunningham house to pay respects.
âJust special, special people,â Ger says. âOne of a kind.âÂ
Thereâs probably not enough of their kind in Louth. Despite legend making it the birthplace of hurling in light of Cuchulainn's exploits on the Cooley Mountains, itâs fair to say the code has not thrived there.
Before Christmas, Hurling Board Secretary Fra Kieran described the state of hurling in the county as âdireâ. Winning the Lory Meagher Cup in Croke Park last summer, he says, masks the sportâs struggle to stay alive at underage.
He pleaded with the county executive to make âa plan to introduce hurling in areas where no hurling existsâ.
In last weekendâs Irish Examiner, Liam Griffin told John Fogarty about the motion he will bring before this yearâs GAA Congress. If passed, it would require every club in the country to field at least one hurling team at U7 and/or U9 and every county to organise hurling for these teams. âA reminder to counties that they foster and promote hurling as well as football.âÂ
Passing it would be a fitting tribute to men like Jackie Connolly.
Ger will go along to PĂĄirc UĂ Rinn on Sunday and he will remember Jackie and his love of Cork and love of hurling. A love that endured whether Cork were up or down, whether they were back or not. Â
And like every Cork man on any given afternoon, Ger will probably give thanks he is from Cork and appreciate the opportunities to hurl his own children were given.
If Manchester City proceed to retain the Premier League, one place in every obligatory Moments That Mattered list has been reserved: Pep Guardiolaâs post-match interview on Thursday night.
It may already have secured a place in the annals of great post-match interviews. Perhaps in time it will come to be regarded as the very opposite of Kev Keeganâs âI would luv itâ.
It is a perplexing time in football anyway as we ponder whether a man who knocks the ball decisively into the goal every time it reaches him is actually making his team worse. Perhaps they should turn him round and get him to knock it backwards in the higher purpose of keeping possession.
It would be the single greatest indictment of football coaching if this was true, of course, an inability to fashion a masterplan around a guarantee of goals.
So it is no wonder Pep Guardiola doesnât seem to be subscribing to this theory. Instead, Pep returned to a theme familiar to this page, the missing ingredient that is the undoing of all the systems and formations and gameplans. A lack of willingness to run.
It baffles them all in the end, how this one gets away from them overnight. Kloppo is in the same boat, wondering now how he persuaded them to burst the lungs for so long.
But Pep laid it all the line after Spurs with his plea for passion. âThereâs nothing from the stomach or the guts and we were lucky.â A final plea almost that his superstars strip it down and find themselves again. And a backhanded nod that he can understand if they canât, since theyâve won so much, that he realises it is human nature they have gone soft.
He had a pop at the fans too, and arranged the odd tripwire for Arsenal while he was at it. No wonder they are so hungry when they havenât eaten in two decades. Ah this one had it all. You suspect it will be a moment that mattered.
