Steadfast Twomey keeps watchful eye on Model pupils

IT’S three weeks since the swarm of pupils and most of the staff emptied their lockers but Dom Twomey is still clocking in at Clonkeen College, creating new timetables and the like before taking his leave.

He is looking forward to it too. For the first time since the early 1970s, he won’t be devoting his summer to the playing fields of Ireland. But his Sundays will still revolve around football, albeit as a spectator, starting this weekend when Dublin and Wexford battle for a Leinster final spot.

Twomey has emotional shares in both sides having spent a year managing Wexford in 2003 after a spell as Tommy Carr’s right-hand man with the Dubs.

Whatever the result he will join the throngs spilling out into Dublin’s northside knowing that he played his own small part in the victor’s story.

“Both teams are at very important crossroads in terms of their development and that makes this game a huge one for both of them,” said the deputy principal.

“Wexford now have the belief that they didn’t have before. They’ve made the step up to Division One, been there for two years and proven their worth. Dublin seem to have found that X-factor that they were missing for the last few years,” he said.

It was a perceived lack of progress that saw his and Carr’s involvement with the Dubs come to an abrupt end in 2001. Having lost two consecutive Leinster finals to Kildare and Meath, they came within a Maurice Fitzgerald wonder point of a place in the All-Ireland semi-final.

“You would have to say Dublin were a small bit hard done by over the last few years. There’s such a fine line between success and failure in sport.”

This year, many of those same players who came up short in seasons past are producing performances of renewed vim and vigour.

“I looked at Ciaran Whelan’s display the last day (against Meath) and that was the ultimate championship performance of a man determined to take a game by the scruff of the neck. It makes me think that they are more capable of doing something this year.”

Whether Wexford can do likewise is still debatable. Their encouraging league campaign was diluted by that heavy final defeat to Armagh and stumbling past Carlow last month didn’t do much to push the notion that they were finally capable of reaching a provincial decider.

Twomey is adamant they are still a team on an upward curve. Crucial to their self-improvement was reaching Division One (under Twomey in 2003) and the two years spent consolidating that status has stood to them, he believes.

He points to players like Darragh Breen, Philip Wallace and Niall Murphy, men who have shaved the rough edges from their game, but Wexford’s recent story can be told through the tale of one man. Guess who?

“Mattie Forde sums up everything about Wexford’s progress this last few years. When I was involved, there were people in his own county wondering whether he had what it takes to make it at the highest level. He was the bright light but there were still big questions.

“Now Mattie epitomises the step up Wexford have taken and there are other players there who have done the same. What Wexford always lacked was knowing how to be streetwise, they took the extra step with the ball or made the wrong passes. They’ve eradicated all that now.”

How the sides will compare when standing side by side is another thing. Sunday is the perfect opportunity to deduce whether Wexford’s players are indeed as good as one of the province’s traditional heavyweights.

“That’s the big question, isn’t it? Does anyone seriously believe that Kilkenny’s hurlers are 31 points better than Offaly’s?

“It’s not a question of man to man, more who is on who. Wexford have the skill and the scoring power, as do Dublin but I just feel Dublin have that bit more athleticism and higher level of application.”