'I've not lost sight of what life is about'

PAT O’SHEA is struggling to recall his first Munster football final.

The year is proving problematic for the Kingdom manager — but Cork’s goal tally isn’t.

“It was 1973 or 74 but the one thing I’m certain of is Cork scored five goals,” he laughs of his supporting debut in the cherished old ground that was his childhood playpen. (It was 1973 and Cork won on an outrageous 5-12 to 1-15 score line).

The little youngster probably paid little heed to the giant guarding the net for Cork but by summer’s end he would watch that man, Billy Morgan, lift the Sam Maguire Cup high into the Croke Park air.

Thirty four years later footballing fate has brought the two together at Fitzgerald Stadium on Sunday, each attempting to derail the other’s chances of a trip up those Hogan Stand steps.

O’Shea isn’t finished with the past and drops another depth charge of a statistic: that Kerry have failed to win a Munster SFC final in their home venue against Cork since 1986. But given that Kerry lost the provincial final last year before landing the All-Ireland, beating Munster champions Cork en route, isn’t such a fact rendered meaningless?

The Kingdom coach would beg to differ. “I grew up against the back of the stand at the stadium and when we were young fellas we would be up there kicking ball morning noon and night through the seventies.

“Since then the Munster finals in Killarney have always been special moments for me. I think a lot of Cork people enjoy coming up here more than they do playing down in Páirc Uí Chaoimh. I remember the likes of Jimmy Barry Murphy, Denny Allen, Denny Long and Stephen O’Brien coming here as well as I remember the Kerry legends. There were some epic battles.”

He continued: “I know people talk about the backdoor but no-one will be thinking that way. Munster is a competition that we would like to win. Winning is a good habit. And there are a lot of motivating factors for us on Sunday: Cork are champions, we haven’t won here in 21 years and the qualifier route mean extra games.”

O’Shea, though a man with an incredible foot-balling brain, is also a staunch traditionalist.

“The entire thing of pride in the jersey is stronger than it ever was. In the last 30 years the tradition has grown. The games are getting more coverage and there is a greater appreciation and respect and an understanding of the effort put in between Cork and Kerry and players in general. It is all about that pride in the county and the jersey — that is the why you play.

“The GAA is an amateur organisation and is about where you come from. If the day comes that players put on a jersey just for the sake of it and doesn’t perform for the people then the entire thing is devalued.”

Does that mean that professionalism is inevitable?

“That is where society is going. It is hard to stop the juggernaut. It is not something I would welcome. There would be a lot of negatives for the Association if we go down that route. But I definitely want to see that all players are well recognised and compensated for anything that they lose from work because of their commitments to GAA.”

O’Shea knows all too well about the battles between managing the day job and the pursuit of footballing excellence.

His passage into one of the most coveted roles in GAA management wasn’t an easy one. After Jack O’Connor’s departure, the Dr Crokes man was soon favoured by the bookies for the hot seat.

The only problem was that his employers, the Munster Council, were a little queasy about their Games Manager taking charge of a county team.

“Initially I didn’t know how it would impact,” he admits. “But thankfully I have been able to juggle both. I train two nights a week with Kerry and of course we have a game or a session at the weekend and I can work around it. I have been involved in this all my adult life and know no different.”

O’Shea adds: “There have been many changes since I first took the job. First of all there are more people on the ground and more people are acutely aware of what is required to keep GAA alive. Society has changed so much in the last couple of year. More and more foreign nationals are entering Irish society and naturally they don’t have a background in GAA.

“People are not as committed to devoting their time and effort to the games and of course there are more attractions and opportunities for youngsters like soccer and rugby, or minority sports which are becoming very popular or even the internet.

“Kids are playing more sports now and if we don’t make our games attractive then kids would walk away from the GAA.

“When I started off it was just primary schools so we were just scratching the surface. Now we go from fundamental age level of six and seven, through coach education, academies, summer camps in schools and clubs up to recreational level.”

The GAA is a relatively recent convert to the concept of academies and schools of excellence. Soccer and rugby have led by example and many of the Ulster provinces have such systems in place. But O’Shea makes an interesting observation about such policies in a changing Ireland.

“One of the big issues with these schools of excellence is that by making one elite squad you may end up excluding many youngsters and they end up leaving GAA. So you need to try and keep the net as open and wide as possible. Here in Kerry we work in five divisions with about 30 kids in each area. So that makes up 150 in total in the county.

“That starts off at U14, then U15 followed by development squads at U16 and U17 which then feeds into the minor side. The hope is that some day your top 30 players will come through to the county side.”

However he adds: “The major thing today is burnout. If you have talented players they will be playing with a lot of different age groups and often we find that kids good in one sport also excel in other games.

“What ends up happening is that the best players are playing too much. What we would do is coaching sessions is the development of their technical skills like catching and kicking. There is also an emphasis on tactical awareness, on diet and nutrition and on good training habits.”

But is there a danger that this approach can stymie the natural talents of someone like O’Shea’s club mate Colm Cooper?

“That would never happen. When you have a talented player the last thing you want to do is ruin that natural talent. You want to enhance their talents and equip them to play more. It is all about developing areas and everyone knows that there is always room for improvement. If another Colm Cooper were to come along you have to try and nurture him and get the most out of those talents.”

O’Shea has one small regret about his day job. The administrative side of being a provincial Games manager means he has little if any time to stand on a pitch and help mould the stars of the future.

“I definitely miss day to day.” he agrees. “But when I went into it, I knew that this was going to happen.”

There are other changes. “I get the odd phone call and people would have opinions which they want heard. Kerry supporters are very knowledge and very interested in what is going on. But since becoming Kerry manager I have not lost sight of what life is all about.”