O’Grady’s loss a risk to crown retention

JUST at a time when Cork hurling is surfing the big waves, we get this.

Let there be no doubt about it, Donal O’Grady’s resignation has dealt a severe blow to Cork’s chances of retaining their All-Ireland crown. He had become that important.

I am not an uncritical admirer of O’Grady. In my opinion, he made serious mistakes last year that ultimately cost Cork. Some of those mistakes were made again this year, at the cost of the Munster title, but were corrected in time.

It was said of his style that he liked to micro-manage, that he would personally see to every little detail.

I’m all for that, because in a finely-balanced competition, the little things can have a big bearing. But what of the macro, the bigger picture?

What was it George Hook said about Mrs Beecham’s recipe for chicken soup? First, catch your chicken. To my mind, the most basic management requirements at

inter-county level are as follows: first, get the best 30 hurlers in the county into training, into condition, ready to play; next, pick your best starting 15; third, as far as is possible (you can have three centre-backs, for example, but not all playing at centre-back), have that 15 in their best positions; fourth and finally, in the event of positional failure or injury, have your substitutions planned.

There are of course other requirements, more subtle, and we’ll get to those, but these are the basics. Here, in my opinion, Donal O’Grady was less than perfect.

A few weeks ago, I read an article where O’Grady was asked if, in hindsight, he would have done anything differently in last year’s All-Ireland final, a game many neutral hurling fans believe Cork should have won. O’Grady reckoned yes, he would have ensured the team weren’t held up in the tunnel before their warm-up, as they were last year.

Nothing else, a perfect example of the micro over the macro. What of his team selection? What of the fact that Joe Deane was left so long on a rampant Noel Hickey? What of the failure to make any substitution in a first-half in which Cork were threatened with being overrun by Kilkenny? Practically the whole of hurling, even inside Cork and Kilkenny, believed the Cork management team got it wrong on the day; that O’Grady felt otherwise was reflected in the fact that he repeated many of those errors in the early rounds of this year’s championship. John Gardiner, a brilliant and natural half-back, at midfield again; Tom Kenny, natural attacker, at half-back; Jerry O’Connor, prototype modern midfielder, at centre-forward; Niall McCarthy, All Star centre-forward, on the wing. Then there was the switching of Sean Óg Ó hAilpín to the opposite wing in that Munster final loss, away from Dan Shanahan, Waterford’s most potent half-forward threat.

Obstinacy is one thing, blindness another.

Speaking of Jerry O’Connor; why did it take O’Grady so long to recognise this extraordinary midfield talent? While the best starting 15 is arguable in almost any situation, club or county, for the last four or five years, Jerry O’Connor has been the best midfielder in Cork club hurling, a pivotal figure in Newtownshandrum’s success. What’s more, Ben, his twin, thrives on the scoreboard when Jerry is supplying the ammunition.

Every year from 2000, he should have been an automatic at midfield for Cork and would now have multiple All Star awards.

Anyway, enough of the negative. By September of this year, all that was in the past; through trial and much error, the basics were finally in place; O’Grady’s ultra professionalism saw to it that the little things were also taken care of. And here’s where we come to the other aspects of management, the intangibles. Team selection, tactics, substitutions, they are all critical; so are the mind games, the mental fitness, the team chemistry. This year, in Cork’s panzer-like march through the All-Ireland series following the disappointment in Munster, O’Grady had the magic. By the time they reached the All-Ireland final, they were in his own image; intelligent, single-minded, gutsy, unflappable, unstoppable, the basics mastered, playing to a masterplan.

And now, after the climax, he pulls out.

His reasons are his own, but I don’t understand it. He was still going to make mistakes, an integral part of the learning process, but there is no doubt that as a manager, Donal O’Grady had really made the grade. This was his team, his job. Far from being finished, the impression left on hurling followers in Croke Park just a few weeks ago was that this group about to realise the potential so fulsomely promised in 1999.

He is leaving a pretty big void, but I wish him all the best. Whoever replaces Donal O’Grady will be under some pressure.