Veteran Dan still living the dream after ignoring hint to quit

ANYONE who saw the current Newtownshandrum side in its infancy in the early 1990’s, when they were accumulating North Cork and county underage titles with consummate ease, knew for certain that this was a side destined for greatness.

Few, perhaps, would have envisaged them going as far as they have, an All-Ireland club final tomorrow in Croke Park, but the potential in those youngsters was glaringly obvious.

Through that same period however, the adult grade wasn’t going quite so swimmingly. Dan O’Riordan, grizzly full-forward and elder statesman of the current squad, remembers it well.

“When I started off, 1987, Newtown were intermediate but on the way down to junior, where we stayed for a few years. We came back up to intermediate in ’93, after reaching the county junior final (beaten), but we got nowhere.”

So, 10 years ago, just at the time the bulk of the current side were starting to make waves, could he see Newtown eventually ending up in Croke Park? “Not a f***ing hope”, he says bluntly. “Things were so bad here that for three years, 1993-95, I was made captain.

“It wasn’t that I was such a great captain, just that no-one else would take it. I remember things were that bad, Simon (Morrissey) and myself went into Charleville one night, we went to eight fellas to know would they coach us. Simon ended up doing it himself. Eight fellas, 1993, no-one would do it. We got all the excuses, proud to be asked, all that sort of thing, but no-one.”

It was in Dan’s last year as captain, 1995, that he first began to see the possibilities. “We had the twins (Ben and Jerry O’Connor) for one League game, against Mallow, and we slaughtered them, walloped them above in Mallow. We tried to get them for the championship but they were only 15.

“I think it was at the time, the Baron (Bernie, their father) wouldn’t allow it, which was fair enough. The Barrs beat us in the championship that year, but we had the twins the following year though, and we won the intermediate championship.”

The breakthrough year was 1996. Mind you, as he tells it himself, if the prediction of one well-known Newtown hurling hero had come to fruition, big Dan would have missed all the glory that followed. “We played Ballymartle in the intermediate League final of ’95, my last chance to get some silverware as captain. We were beaten, but early in the second half I missed a goal. A certain well-known member on the sideline mumbled to Simon (Morrissey), ‘I think Dan Riordan’s days are done at this level anyway.’ It wasn’t said with any malice now,” he laughs, “but still, I’ve reminded that individual a few times since of what he said that day.”

He’s had to put up with more than his share of abuse over the years, but he’s a big man, Dan O’Riordan, big heart, big laugh, hard as nails on the field, genial and good-humoured off it.

Among those who admire hurling’s thoroughbreds he would be seen as something of a cart-horse, lacking the sublime pacy skills of most of the other members of this flying Newtownshandrum fifteen.

“The Baron used to tell me that I was fine ’til I tried to hurl.”

But he can hurl. A bit like that other great warrior Tony Doran of Buffers Alley and Wexford, Dan is the man who will stick up that great farmer’s claw, big as a baseball catcher’s mitt, edge of the square, forest of flailing ash, and grab the ball. In a side that finds it hard to score goals, Dan was the man who crashed home Newtown’s only major in the two semi-final games against O’Loughlin’s of Kilkenny, one of many he’s bagged for the green-and-gold. Among some, at least, it’s appreciated.

“Even in the bad years, we had as much craic up there in that field as we do now. But these are a special bunch of fellas, these lads. When I was building my house, you could call on any one of them on a Saturday, and they wouldn’t leave you down. Many times I needed a hand, a dig-out, and they’d be on in 10 minutes.”

He’s going on 34 this year, Dan O’Riordan, working twice as hard as everyone else just to hang onto his place in this starting fifteen. But just for the rest of us, for all those old club hurlers who would never get near Croke Park but for the AIB club championship, wouldn’t it be great to see the big No. 14 grab that ball from the sky, turn, and burst one of those perfect, pristine nets.

Living the dream.