Football was, and still is my life: Larry Tompkins

THERE are readily identifiable similarities between Páidi Ó Sé and Larry Tompkins, even if the manner of their departure as county football managers this week was hardly one of them.

Whereas the Kerry boss went out with a fight and a flashlight, his Cork football counterpart sealed his letter of resignation and posted it to the County Board in Páirc Uí Chaoímh.

There is no great surprise that Tompkins has decided not to seek another term as manager. For a county that still considers itself a member of football's elite, his seven years in charge will be considered a failure. No All-Ireland and only two Munster titles is hardly the stuff of bar-room bragging, but nobody can ever question Tompkins' passion for the job. Unfortunately, it was not enough. Páidi Ó Sé would understand that.

So too does Liam Hayes, the ex-Meath star. He warned Tompkins when he took over the Cork footballers not to expect every player to be as driven as him. For better or worse, Tompkins did.

That's why he called it quits yesterday after the Championship defeats to Limerick and Roscommon. Though Tompkins denied yesterday he ever "lost" the dressing room, it was clear this year that he could never mould the current batch of Cork players into his own image. Truly, if teams are a reflection of their manager, Tompkins was in charge of the wrong team.

He admitted yesterday that this was a "defining season".

"It was clear in my head. This year was crucial in terms of where we were going. The way the season panned out, with the amount of work we had put in, I was very disappointed with the way we performed.

"That's not the way I'd see my team going out. This Cork team is good enough to beat Limerick and Roscommon, and that's no reflection on those counties."

Tompkins has always been fiercely protective of his players, but he must have been let down by the Munster Championship capitulation to Limerick in Páirc Uí Chaoímh.

"I've been a player, and always gave 100% for Cork. The easy thing now is to blame the manager for every defeat I don't subscribe to that view and never have. If I thought for one minute that I'd be looking to blame Billy Morgan, or whoever, as manager when I was playing, then I'd know that the end was night for me."

Not that Tompkins isn't ready to confess to several faux pas himself, both in terms of judgment and selection.

The role and impact of the Nemo Rangers contingent has been central to much of the ire and angst surrounding the Cork footballers in recent years. Tompkins reverted to the tried and trusted after experimenting with several youngsters in a promising Allianz League campaign this year, and regrets it now.

"The sting might have been drawn from the Nemo lads after winning the All-Ireland in March. When it came to the Championship selection, our judgment wasn't probably right in that regard.

"I am not condemning them, but in hindsight it would have been better to go with guys who were hungry and fresh. It was the wrong move to change the team. But I would also say that once you're between the white lines, you are responsible for your own actions. The players win or lose the game."

The closest Tompkins got to an All-Ireland as manager was the final of 1999, when fate and Meath conspired to deny him.

"Had it been any other opposition, we would have won. Nobody is harder to beat down the stretch than Meath, but people also forget we had no Aidan Dorgan, Colin Corkery wasn't able to train that year, and critically, we were also denied Steven O'Brien by injury.

"He was our biggest loss. When a game has to be won, Steven had the balls for it. He had that winning mentality if we could have had him training, and could have thrown him in for the last 20 minutes, it would have made the difference."

There are many tales of Tompkins' fanatical desire for football. The little known fact that he made an attempt, at 40, to come back playing club football with Castlehaven this season, underlines that. With two discs removed and both cruciate ligaments operated on, his remains are as likely to be donated to medicine as anything else in years to come but it didn't stop Tompkins last January.

"It was going well, in fact. I had got myself back in fairly good shape. Then one night with Cork in Carrigaline, I ended up fairly crippled, so bad that I couldn't get into the shower or the car afterwards. Dr Con (Murphy) just said one word: 'Stop'."

This writer once heard a barely believable story about Tompkins' ferocious ambition, which I presumed to be an exaggeration. I only learned of its veracity yesterday.

"When I was playing, I'd do anything to be the best if that took training three times a day I would do it. I'd get up at 5am if I thought it would give me that bit of an advantage over somebody.

"Football was, and is, my life and that came from my family. Listening to Mícheál O'Hehir on All-Ireland day, I just got into my head that I wanted to be there and I could be there."

AS a raw 17-year-old, Tompkins first played for Kildare in Tralee against the power and panache of Mick O'Dwyer's all-conquering Kerry.

"They were awesome. I think they beat us by 15 points. I started on Jimmy Deenihan and then went out on Páidí Ó Sé. Afterwards, all I wanted to know was what training they were doing Ogie Moran overheard me and advised me to do weights, to build myself up.

"Going home that night, all I could think of was where would I find a gym in Kildare. I got a lift to Naas the following night, and walked around the town for two or three hours looking.

"Finally I found this place on the Newbridge Road, that had been set up by two guys from the Army. I went there three and four nights a week and it was the making of me. We played Kerry the following year in a League match and I roasted Tim Kennelly. What made me especially proud was that, at 18, I was able to win possession, hold onto it and take the belts."

Not surprisingly, then, Tompkins stoutly defends the gruelling training regime he introduced as manager of Cork in 1996/97, insisting that hill climbing sessions in Macroom were "the best training we ever had".

"In 1997 we gathered up a lot of young cubs and went onto a National league final. But luck was out the day we played Clare in the Championship." Martin Daly's injury time goal still haunts Tompkins, but he shares the culpability of that shock defeat.

"I made a couple of bad decisions, like leaving out Niall Cahalane. I know in my heart that Niall would go through the wall for Cork. Ronan McCarthy was going well that year, and we left him out too.

"Afterwards I admitted to Niall that I had made a wrong decision. He was a winner, someone who'd go that extra yard to win. If Niall was there that day, we'd have beaten Clare."

Tompkins can point to close calls against Kerry in 1998 and 2000, but remembers the Munster final victory over Kerry in 1999 as a high point.

It was a really wet day, but the team was inspired. They were diving on tackles, showing unreal focus and commitment. It was a defining moment for me the way I always wanted the team to play.

"I'm not saying we were the finished article at that stage, but we were on the way. We probably lacked the killer instinct when it was needed."

And so he walks away, frustrated but able to look at himself in the mirror every morning. "Any decision I've made was to help Cork football. I feel free to walk down the street and look at anybody."