There’s something about Seanie

THE last great Cork hurling side, the three-in-a-row All-Ireland-winning outfit of 1976/77/78, had a plethora of household names.

From Martin Coleman in goal, through multiple dual All-Ireland-winner Brian Murphy at corner-back, full-back Martin Doherty, swash-buckling ’blondie’ John Horgan, Crowleys, John and Tim, McCarthys Gerald and Charlie (all unrelated), stylish Tom Cashman, to the two forward giants of the game, Ray Cummins and of course Jimmy Barry-Murphy, JBM.

There was another involved in those glory years however who, even as the county afterwards went through a sticky patch, won his way into the very discerning hearts of the Cork hurling public. Seán O’Leary on the birth certificate, Seánie Leary to the fans, Allstar left-corner-forward in two of those years, ‘76 and ‘77, Allstar again in 1984, winner earlier in his career of three U-21 All-Ireland medals in a four-year period, 70, ‘71 and ‘73.

He wasn’t the greatest stylist in the world, a la Barry-Murphy, nor possessed of the freakish athletic genius of the cerebral Cummins, but the stocky corner-forward did have something special. He scored goals, crucial goals, championship-changing goals, game-breakers, history-makers.

The goal for which Seánie O’Leary is best remembered by Cork fans, and indeed by Tipperary fans, came in his final season, 1984. It didn’t come in the All-Ireland final, nor even in the semi-final, it came in the Munster Final.

The venue was Thurles, the opponents were Tipperary. Munster SHC Final cauldrons don’t normally come any hotter. But this one did. 1984 was the GAA Centenary Year and in that historic season, each of the big three in hurling, Cork, Tipperary and Kilkenny, wanted desperately to be the ones to put their names on the McCarthy Cup.

Throw in the fact that Cork had lost the All-Ireland finals of 1982 and ‘83, and the pressure can only be imagined. “It was there alright, I suppose,” O’Leary says now, with just a little understatement.

With five minutes to go, Tipp led by four points and looked set for a famous victory. But a point by Cork midfielder John Fenton, coupled with a goal by Tony O’Sullivan, tied the game. Tipp charged upfield but the Cork defence held firm and cleared their lines.

O’Sullivan won the clearance and shot for a Cork point. Tipp keeper John Sheedy brings the ball down from over the bar. And into the path of one S. O’Leary.

Game, set and Munster title to Cork, courtesy of the killer corner-forward.

In the days before strikers wandered the park, he was Lineker, Muller, Rossi. Around the box, he was goal-poacher supreme, finisher-par-excellence, sniper most deadly.

They are a breed apart. Patience, stealth, timing, wait, wait, hide, bide ’til the time is ripe, then regardless of personal risk or pain, they pounce. That Munster Final typified it all for Seánie O’Leary.

“I had a very, very average game,” is how he shrugs it off himself, “struck gold alright at the finish but took a long time to do it.” Struck when it mattered, when the jugular was exposed. Two games later, All-Ireland final tucked away, he was gone.

“I was 32, but I had a fair share of it done at that stage. Times were different anyway. We had won the centenary All-Ireland, it meant a lot to us, it is hard even to pin-point that now. The game wasn’t in Croke Park, it was played in Thurles, against Offaly, whom we hadn’t met that much before at any really competitive level. It was a poor game but we won it, having lost the two finals before that. It was a historic one.”

Done with putting the ball in the back of the net, Seánie O’Leary wasn’t yet done with history. In 1997, Imokilly won their first ever Cork County Senior hurling title. At the helm? Yes, Seánie O’Leary, and the following year, 1998, they did it again, just to show it was no fluke. It’s not a place he’s all that concerned about one way or the other, but those successes brought the Youghal-man back into the public eye, and in 1999 he was back on the biggest hurling stage of all.

Selector, one of manager Jimmy Barry-Murphy’s right-hand men as an exceptionally-young Cork team battled its way to a most unlikely All-Ireland senior title, ended a nine-year drought. Following that win, Seánie left the scene again, content.

Given all the above, Seánie O’Leary could have dined out for the rest of his life not just on his playing exploits, but on what he’s done since. He could surely talk forever about all those good old days, and his part in them. He doesn’t.

Seánie is back, as a selector again with the senior Cork team, He prefers to talk of now, of today, of the modern game, of the modern player. And he’s hugely impressed.

“The game has progressed very well, fantastic hurling is being played at the moment and in the right spirit. It’s especially good to have the hatchet-men gone out of it, we all need to get up in the morning, whether that’s at underage or senior level, club or county. The skill levels are superb, fellas are working very hard on that. Even though there has been a lot of criticism of the amount of physical training, a lot of that is done with the ball.

“All the top players make the ball talk, take it out of your eye, pluck it out of the air from great heights. I know some players could do that in the past also, but the players now are fantastic, they all deserve credit for the levels of performance produced, by all teams.”

What of all this talk that all the fun is going out of it for the players? In rugby (and Seán has a multi-talented son Tomás, a recent Cork hurling minor but now making a name for himself in the oval-ball code), many former players can be heard proclaiming their delight at having played in the old days when it was so much more fun, before it became all serious, all professional. Hurling is now professional in everything but payment of the players. So has it too gone all-too-serious?

“I don’t think so, I think the players still get tremendous joy and pride out of it. The Cork players this year were absolutely delighted the night of the Munster final, they felt very honoured to win a Munster championship. I think the players expect to be worked hard, to be trained hard, they know what they have to give in order to make the panel first of all, then to make the team.

“We have no-one in this panel who’s there simply because they have nothing better to do, they’re all committed to the Cork cause. There’s a calling in it and if you’re interested in doing it, if you’re talented enough, you will get called up.

“If you’re not interested, not fully committed, you’ll get found out very quickly.”

Not that he doesn’t see a change from his own playing days. He’s a realist, but he’s not blind. “It’s a totally different scene now. You have a lot more people from the newspapers, from radio, television. You have local radio as well, lots of different groups and organisations bringing the game into people’s homes. Everybody is looking for a piece of the action I suppose, leading up to games and after the games, and that’s where you have increased pressure.

“And of course there is more training. Every player is training four nights a week nowadays, whether with the club or certainly with the county leading up to championship games. The preparation is very professional now, the people involved with the physical training, the dieticians and so on, tell you that what players eat, what they drink, must be controlled. The players themselves know they have to achieve certain fitness levels to survive at inter-county level, and that’s been proved time and again over the last seven or eight years. Additionally, performance levels are very closely scrutinised, players have to be pretty critical of themselves.

“Every game is critically analysed by the pundits too, and no player likes to play badly and be shown up as such. For those reasons, players are making the huge sacrifices, putting in the effort.”

IT seems like a lot of effort just to win a medal, but with pay-for-play ruled out for the foreseeable future, Seánie O’Leary doesn’t see change coming any time soon. “Not until the time every team decides not to train for six months. Maybe if they were all chained up, locked away for six months then brought out and asked to play championship, see how they’d get on. I don’t think the players themselves would like to do that, I think they enjoy the training, enjoy the fitness levels they have to reach. They have a good lifestyle as well, once they look after themselves, and the rewards are there to be seen too, all the hype that goes with the game. That was a great feeling a few weeks ago, Munster champions 2003, though it was put aside very shortly afterwards.”

Ah yes, we were coming to that. That 1999 side was expected to get better and better, win a few more All-Irelands for Cork, perhaps even match the achievements of the side of the late 1970s. It didn’t happen though. Instead, the graph went down and down. They won Munster again in 2000, then lost a sickener to Offaly. A tame championship exit followed in 2001, before a tame and shame loss in 2002, leading eventually to crisis, and last winter’s well-documented confrontation between players and county board.

The management team resigned in a welter of accusation, counter-accusation, lots of bruised feelings. Eventually, peace was restored, and in the hunt for a new manager, the name Seánie O’Leary figured prominently. He wasn’t interested in the number one job, but when new man Donal O’Grady came knocking, and once Seánie felt assured that O’Grady would be allowed do things his own way, he was back on board as a selector.

Since then, the ship is back on an even keel. The Munster title has been regained, celebrated for that night or two, put aside. “That’s all we’ve achieved so far, and we’d like to do more. There’s at least one more game now, against Wexford, just to get to an All-Ireland final, and that will be another step altogether.”

Deep waters this Sunday, Croke Park, big fish await. So does a wily old poacher.