Winners to a tee

Joe Connolly and Joe Hennessy joined forces against the Examiner’s Tony Considine and Diarmuid O’Flynn in an epic golf match in Nenagh Golf Club.

THEY were born in 1956 and charted parallel courses in their hurling careers. Joe Hennessey is from Kilkenny, where All-Ireland titles are practically a birthright; Joe Connolly is from Castlegar, Galway a county that knew only hunger, frustration and dashed hope. And yet, by the time they had finished their inter-county careers, they had both reached the ultimate heights. The two Allstars had joined forces against the Examiner's Tony Considine and Diarmuid O'Flynn in an epic golf match in Nenagh Golf Club, all four sat and talked. And talked and talked.

JC: If you listen to the contents of that speech, it was very average. As I was talking, I was wondering what am I going to say next here! I think the reason people still talk about it is because it was completely in Irish.

JH: Ah no, I wouldn't agree with that at all.

TC: My wife has a bit of Irish, she thinks it was the best speech ever made.

DOF: A surprising number of people understand an awful lot of Irish, far more than they even think themselves. It's just that we don't speak it often enough.

TC: I want to ask you a question now, Joe. Are Kilkenny the toughest county in hurling?

JC: They're my favourite hurling county, for a start. It's never a neat-looking outfit, is it, the black-and-amber stripes, you see fellas like Ger Henderson with the top of his togs rolled down! But there's an innateness in their hurling that isn't in any other county. They have all the little touches, yet they never, ever, lacked anything in the physical stakes. It's funny, people always talk about the beautiful ball-players Kilkenny have, but they'd kill you. O'Hara, Brian Cody, Paddy Prendergast, Ger Henderson, John Henderson, this gentleman here, they'd kill you rather than let you get a score.

JH: I suppose when a young lad like me could go into Tulla(roan) and survive, you did okay.

TC: Do you remember Tony O'Sullivan. He was absolutely brilliant in Munster in 1982 against Clare, and then he met Paddy Prendergast, in the All-Ireland final.

JH: Yeah, the new Christy Ring; people were wondering who was going to stop him in Kilkenny, and sure there was a queue of lads! Actually, it was Ger Henderson that gave him the shoulder that sickened him. Henderson levelled him, and Prendergast hurled him afterwards.

I remember, someone said to Fan one time, about all these big fellas, and how tough it must be.

"Sure don't they all bleed," says Fan.

JC: St. Martin's beat us in the All-Ireland club final in 1985, in a replay, now they were a tough team.

JH: Yes, but they were a great crowd. I struck one of them one night in a county semi-final Jim Moran, one of several brothers on the team. They had a fella centre-field, and when he'd kick a ball, his back leg would come up like a horse, and he'd shout, "yii-hoo!" and then he'd say, "good man Patsy!" about himself! Anyway, this ball was trickling wide, I think Jim was full-forward, and I was wondering, will I go for it or what or let it out wide. Next thing this boot came flying and skinned me ear; it didn't hurt. I was under Jim, let fly and caught him, spot on. Jim would have killed me with one hand but I'd hurt him. We came out anyway for the second half, and one of the boys from Muckalee was sitting in the dugout, called me over; "Hey Joe," he says, "you're a fecking brave man to come back out for the second half!"

I survived it anyway, but six weeks later, I met Jim in Kilkenny, on the bridge, and I said, now Joe, this is it, he's either going to take it good, or you're going over the side! He stopped, we talked, that was it, he was after taking it well enough. But they were great men, real men, up the mountain in Muckalee. Fan Larkin said to me one time, you could bate Tom Moran, Jim's brother, you could bate him like an ass, and he'd never complain. And did Fan bate him like an ass!

TC: So why didn't he throw Fan out of his way?

JH: He was too nice and a good hurler too. He won it for them that year. But they had a following, some following boy.

TC: The softest part of a Kilkenny-man is his teeth, but you know, in all my years going to games, I don't think I've ever seen a Kilkenny hurler fighting. They'd kill you on the ball, but they don't fight.

JC: It's like Kerry in the football. I like to go down to Killarney, went to an East Kerry U21 match one night. What a night! It was one of these great fightbacks, country lads against town lads, but I've never been at a game like it as regards standards. Didn't matter what kind of haymaker a fella got, he just looked up, took a quick free, got on with the game. There was a soft free given by the ref at one stage, a bit of mouthing, and he moved it way up, straight in front of the goal. If that had been in Galway, there would have been war, but even the crowd didn't react. If Kilkenny don't fight, it's because of an inherent standard. There's another thing, in Kilkenny, the county player is respected in Galway, he's killed.

JH: Didn't it happen a couple of weeks ago, with DJ getting an awful belt.

JC: The main reason Kilkenny are so successful is that they have nothing else, the whole focus is on hurling. Galway has Salthill, one Festival after another, the Races, then comes September, and an invasion by 12,000 students. In Kilkenny, it's just hurling. The Kilkenny team of 1983 were having a bit of a reunion in the Connemara Coast Hotel, and a few of the Galway lads went out to meet them. Now at the time, I wouldn't know more than three or four of the Galway minor team to see them, but that night, among all the singing and craic, Liam Fennelly and Brian Cody started talking hurling. And I was amazed. They were talking about a left-half-forward U12 from Freshford, say, then a left-half-back U10 from Carrickshock. They had an absolutely encyclopaedic knowledge of Kilkenny hurling, at every age group.

JH: Joe, if I heard of a star U12 from Mooncoin, the farthest parish from the city, I'd be going down there for their next match, to check him out for myself. The next time I heard his name mentioned, I could say, yes, he's good.

DOF: Have you ever seen a Kilkennyman that wasn't confident, that didn't believe Kilkenny were going to win, every game?

TC: I'll tell you a story about that. I asked a Kilkennyman once to pick his five all-time greats, a friend of Jack Heaslip's, up from Knocktopher, a fierce hurling man, watching hurling since 1932; he picked four Kilkennymen, and Christy Ring.

JH: And he was from Kilkenny?

TC: He was!

JH: And why didn't he give us the fifth so? Are you sure he was a Kilkennyman? He left us down, so he did! There was a young one in Kilkenny a few weeks ago, sitting at the table at home. Her father was watching the news, and you know the woman from Limerick that won the European lotto, the 115 million, the woman from Limerick? The father anyway says to the young one, would you like to be her now, win all that money? And the young one says, "it won't help Limerick to beat Kilkenny on Sunday!" That was the way she was looking at it.

JC: That kind of interest just isn't there in Galway. What most upsets me about Galway hurling nowadays, how we've wasted what we had for the last 15 fifteen years. It's terrible to see great minor teams being messed around for a whole generation. It would sicken you. I was in a pub at a parish event the night the news broke about Tony Keady's suspension, in 1989. Little huddles, "he's after getting six months," "he's after getting six months," whispered from one group to the next. It was like a death, but that was how important Galway hurling was, at the time.

Now, we lose League finals, All-Ireland quarter-finals, it's greeted with a shrug. It means nothing.

JH: There was a song out at the time, "Mandela will be free, Mandela, Nelson Mandela"; ye came to play a League match in Kilkenny afterwards, there was a Galway crowd up in the bank, singing, "Keady will be free, Keady, To-o-ny Keady!"

JC: I was talking to Conor (Hayes, Galway manager) recently; you know the Cork set-up, the equipment van, the likes of Jerry O'Connor when he was in the Garda College in Templemore being picked up by taxi, a minibus even, so he could relax on the journey to training, to matches? Conor told me, there would be evenings when they'd have to start training with four or five sliothars. You were dealing with a different regime altogether. The big picture was missing. But you know the funny thing, there isn't a club in Galway that isn't willing to do whatever is necessary for Galway to win the All-Ireland. There's a four-month break in the championship now, and no complaint.

DOF: Who were the great

characters?

JH: It would have to be John Quigley (Wexford) for me. My first day for Kilkenny, the '76 Leinster final, with about 15 minutes left in the match, Wexford were about 2-16 to 0-5 up. I went in as a sub, only 19 and a half, John looked at me, "Jaysus I'm playing great stuff today!"

TC: Jackie Gorman tells a story about John Quigley. They were playing Wexford, in a League game in Croke Park. Jimmy Rochford was wing-back for Clare and Vincent Loftus was full-back. Vincent lived and worked in Dublin, and he ran into John Quigley. Clare had made a change during the week, switched Jackie out to wing-back, put Rochford up to wing-forward, where he actually played for his club, Bodyke. Rochford now was the kind of fella who would cut the head clane off you, and make out you'd look better without it!

Quigley met Vincent anyway, asked him what this Rochford fella was like. "Arra he's cowardly as hell, you'll have no trouble with him anyway, he'll run away from you," says Vincent.

JH: Walking him into it!

TC: First ball, Quigley drew across Rochford. Well, Jimmy stood back, let fly, pasted him. Quigley was moved up corner-forward after that, and it made him, never played in the backs again.

JC: Galway were playing Wexford one day and John Quigley was centre-back. John was centre-forward, and he had one of those 15 minutes hitting six points from play. Running back out after scoring one of those points he came to Quigley and said: "next ball, you're down!"

"Make sure I don't get up!" says John.

TC: Do ye think the hitting is

harder now?

JC: I don't think so. Look at last Sunday's game, there was only one real hit, by Gardiner on O'Connell, and he was blown for that.

JH: Who would stand shoulder to shoulder today with Frank Cummins? With Ger Henderson?

TC: In all fairness, very few fellas were as strong as Frank Cummins, before or after.

JC: I remember a game in my early days when I came shoulder to shoulder with Martin Quigley. He stuck out something like his hip and I thought I was going to die! I had to walk back towards the right-corner-forward position and I wobbling, listening to the crowd jeering, but I just couldn't straighten up.

JH: He had a few years on you as well though, Joe. What about Dan Quigley, Tony Doran?

DOF: There is one man, Diarmuid O'Sullivan, he'd stand up to anyone.

JC: In fairness, I think it's a great era for full-backs. There's Lohan, O'Sullivan, Maher of Tipperary, Darragh Ryan of Wexford, yer man in Kilkenny, Noel Hickey, a great player.

DOF: TJ Ryan was good too, when he was there for Limerick.

JH: He was. Goalkeepers too, you have Davy Fitz, James McGarry, Cummins, Cusack, but I think the Wexford man is the best of them, Fitzhenry. He's the nearest I've seen to Ollie for the sidestep, plucking the ball out of the sky.

TC: Would Ollie have taken the penalties, the way Fitzhenry does?

JC: Oh God he would, no question, he had a fierce strike of a ball. Wasn't he a 1-handicap golfer?

JC: He had to take a shot out of the long grass one time, it was like a scythe had come through, he just sliced through the grass.

TC: Are ye glad to have played the game?

JH: Where would we be without it? Think what we would have missed.

JC: I went up to a rugby international, Ireland against England, with a friend of mine, he was reading an article about Bill Gates, of Microsoft. "Fifty million dollars a day" he says, then looks at me. "Has he an All-Ireland medal?" I said.