Reluctant coach finds Muskerry on verge of glory

GARY McPOLIN knows the trouble loose talk can get you into. Last year the former Macroom star was at a game when he fell into conversation with Paddy O’Mahony of the Muskerry GAA board.

O’Mahony was looking for a coach for Muskerry’s footballers but McPolin, a busy Garda sergeant in Blackrock, declined.

“I told him if he was stuck for a selector to give me a shout. Lo and behold, I got a phone call in January to tell me I’d been ratified as coach,” said McPolin,

The Mid Cork outfit hadn’t made it past the first round in six years, but McPolin, who played on the Muskerry side that lost the 1995 county final to Bantry, wasn’t downhearted.

“I felt there were great footballers in the division if you could get them together and get them to believe in themselves. I’m no Mickey Harte or Mick O’Dwyer, far from it - I coached Kilbrittain’s junior footballers 10 years ago and that was about it - but I’d been coached by good coaches in De La Salle Macroom, in the Macroom club, and the likes of Billy Morgan, so I suppose I was picking stuff up along the way from them.”

Muskerry decided on one significant change, focusing on practice matches rather than training. McPolin felt players were fit from training with their clubs anyway, and with the likes of Tom Kenny and Noel O’Leary away playing for Cork he expanded the panel and saw results pretty quickly.

“We ended up with 20 practice matches, but the real benefit of those was in the five championship games - we’ve won each by a point, apart from the Imokilly game, which we won by two points. At this stage we’re used to a tight, hard game.”

They also had a ready-made template. Carbery’s win in last year’s county final wasn’t just encouraging; it offered some tactical tips that fit in with McPolin’s philosophy of the game.

“I’d know some of the Carbery lads, and (coach) John Corcoran,” says McPolin, “They had a great base - Eoin Sexton, Micheal O’Sullivan, Pat Hegarty - but I was also impressed with the style they played last year, a mixture of the short and the long game. I’d be a traditionalist, I think the catch and kick and the fast ball in is one of the hardest ploys to defend against.

“We looked at the players available and felt the group would suit a certain type of football - not the traditional short-passing Muskerry style.”

It’s been a successful approach, but McPolin admits there are headaches - for one, Muskerry need to concentrate for the entire game on Sunday.

“At different stages we’ve let teams back into games we should have won well, so concentration is going to be vital. I know that’s a cliché, but it’s true. We let Seandun back into the game, we played well against Imokilly but against the Haven we played well in patches but lost out on breaking ball. We improved on breaking ball in the Clon game but had lapses of concentration and conceded three goals. We improved against Dohenys but we still left them rally again.”

That won’t be good enough on Sunday. Nemo are rightful favourites, as McPolin acknowledges.

“I played against Nemo often enough - I lost two U-21 finals against them in 1988 and 1989 - and though we beat them once or twice at intermediate level and with Muskerry, I still lost to them more often than I won. They’ve got a fantastic ethos in the club, so many intercounty players who always come back to help out. That’s a fantastic template for any club.

“We respect them, but we don’t fear them. I always enjoyed playing against them because they’ll always play football; you’ve to rise to their game rather than the other way around. You’d have to envy their success. At the Aghada game last weekend their backroom team was Jimmy Kerrigan, Tony Nation and Ephie Fitzgerald and I’m sure the likes of Billy Morgan and Frank Cogan and all the rest can contribute as well. To be fair to them, they’re unselfish, there’s no swelled heads there, they’re stalwarts of Cork football and you’d have to take your hat off to them.”

Though an extra week would give Muskerry a chance to clear up some niggling injuries and to get the heads around the fact that they’re in a county final, McPolin suggests players won’t have time to dwell on the fact that they’re playing in a county final. Overall, he’s happy with the preparation.

“With a divisional team it can happen that fellas will say ‘such and such from Grenagh or Macroom or Ballingeary isn’t trying, why should I?’ That hasn’t happened with this team - they’ve been very united, there are no egos or rebels.

“It can happen on the day that fellas are waving at their mammy or daddy up in the stand, but you’ve only one chance. I played in one senior final and I lost it. The players on this team need to realise that was ten years ago, and that we lost another in 1970, so chances like this don’t come around in twos or threes. I’ll be saying to the lads to seize the day and go for it.”