‘Limerick deserved an All-Ireland’
I remember before ‘73 all the talk was about the Mackeys, the Herberts (Limerick hadn’t won an All-Ireland since 1940), and it was hard to listen to.
PAT HENDERSON: I remember talking to the Limerick lads after ‘73 and it was as if a burden was lifted off their shoulders. I can’t remember who exactly it was I was talking to, but he said to me, we won’t have to listen to all that talk of 1940 anymore; I can imagine now that the current lads are sick of hearing about Ned Rea, so I can see where you’re coming from.
DIARMUID O’FLYNN: Pat, you played with Ned Byrne, who became an international prop-forward?
PH: The first time I ever ran into Ned Byrne it was that, literally; the minors were training with the seniors, pucking around with them, and he hit me from the side, nearly killed me. I never forgot that, and he never got the same chance again! But he was a very strong man, well built.
NR: Wasn’t he a cousin of Willie Duggan’s?
PH: First cousin, and he was a son of Locky Byrne’s, the full-forward from the 30s, so there was a strong hurling background. He was with James Stephens, there was a strong rivalry with the Fenians at the time, so I’d have played on him fairly regularly.
DO’F: You started out life as a corner-back Ned, I remember some great battles you had with Charlie McCarthy.
NR: I had, with Limerick against Cork and with UCC against the Barrs.
We’re still great friends, I’d bump into him occasionally. But you have those old relationships. Last Saturday week, before the football semi-final against Meath, I was on duty in the bar (Ned now runs a very popular bar in Parkgate Street, just across the road from Heuston Station). This guy walks in, a cap, a stout fella — a pint of Murphy’s, he says.
Sorry, I don’t do Murphys, I told him, so he had a Guinness. I knew I knew him, but I couldn’t place him. ‘‘It’s been a few years since we crossed swords,’’ he says, and I had him, straight away. Paddy Fitzgerald, from Midleton and Cork, left-half-back in ‘66 and a fine hurler. While we were talking, a guy walked in who works in the Ashling Hotel, up the road here, and they knew everything about each other, friends, relations, going all the way back.
Cork would be very good to me, in the pub. I’m telling people, I’m going to miss them this weekend, but I have a better replacement!
The Cork guys arrive on Friday evening, all day Saturday, Sunday before and after the match, then Monday again, before they take the train home. You’ll get a bunch of them coming in on the Monday morning, they’ll leave on the noon train, another bunch coming in then, leave in mid-afternoon, another bunch coming in then, leave in the evening – if you planned it, it couldn’t work out any better. They give me pictures for the walls – the guys with the hats, the pipes, the drums, great characters.
The Tipperary lads are good to me as well, Laois is very good to me. The worst of them all is Kilkenny; my in-laws are Kilkenny, and I even have problems getting into the pub!
PH: Why is that?
NR: I don’t know, I think it’s the way they travel. Kilkenny is massive for coaches.
PH: It is, they come up in the morning, hit for home afterwards, go home to their own pubs.
DO’F: Staying away from 73, what do ye think of the modern game?
NR: One thing that has really impressed me this year is the fantastic sportsmanship displayed. In all the matches — Munster, Leinster, the qualifiers, the quarter-finals and semi-finals — I can’t remember one bad incident, not one. The only thing was Cork and Clare before the start of the match in Semple Stadium, and that was nothing.
PH: Harmless.
NR: It was badly handled, both teams should have put their hands up immediately, apologised.
DO’F: I don’t think they had time, really, they were hauled over the coals by the CCC almost immediately, and I’d say they were just nervous about leaving themselves too open.
NR: Maybe, but apart from that, it’s been a fantastic championship, very sporting. Yet if there’s one bad incident it will be splashed all over the papers, the Irish Independent particularly, no comment about the great sportsmanship. If there’s good news, it should be told.
DO’F: What about the picture of big Dan Shanahan and Diarmuid O’Sullivan squatting, grinning at each other, towards the end of the Munster semi-final? That was the spirit of this whole championship, I think.
PH: You’d often see that during a game, lads passing remarks to each other, having a little laugh, before they got on with the game. And in my experience, that was always the way, in hurling. What I feel about hurling, it’s too dangerous a game to be too dirty; you have a weapon in your hand, you could do serious damage to someone with that, you could kill someone with a hurley, if you wanted to. If there wasn’t honour in the game, you were in trouble.
NR: The other thing, Pat, you could provoke the wrong guy too.
PH: Now you have it. The quiet guy there, hit him and you don’t know what you’re provoking. The guy throwing all the shapes, making all the noise, you don’t have to worry about him.
DO’F: Who were some of the great characters on your teams?
PH: Fan Larkin was a great character, always, the life and soul of the party.
NR: Chunky?
PH: Yeah, Chunky was a smashing fella as well, knocked around with a hard gang. But Fan was the man. 1979 was his last All-Ireland, he was pushing on then, nearly 40, but I never saw a fella as nervous before a game. He had six hurls with him, the wife carrying them, going into Croke Park, and he was like an anti-Christ. He wouldn’t go to Mass with us that morning, we all went to nine o’clock Mass in St. John’s but Fan wouldn’t go – bad humour. He couldn’t make up his mind which hurl he’d use, what togs he’d wear, what boots to use – he was just in bad humour, a nervous wreck.
We were playing a good Galway team, he was on Frank Burke, the guy who makes the films, brought out the book of photos, a big man. Very early on in the game anyway, he says to Fan – “Hi, Fan, they’re looking for you over on the line, they’re calling you – I think they’re going to take you off!”
This was the first five minutes. It ended up though that Frank was the man taken off, Fan had the last laugh!
NR: Roger Ryan of Tipperary was like that. But I’ll never forget the 72 All- Ireland final, Cork were raging hot favourites after coasting through Munster. Fan was getting a roasting anyway.
PH: We were all getting a roasting!
NR: They took off Fan, brought on Martin Coogan, and he gave an exhibition. That was the day Eddie Keher got the goal from under the Hogan Stand, a half-hit ball, I think he was going for a point but it deceived Paddy Barry. Cork were leading by about eight points, lost by 10.
PH: I remember Con Roche, the Cork wing-back, got a point in the second half, it seemed like he hit it from about 200 yards! We looked to be in deep trouble, but that was the last score Cork got.
But Fan was actually injured going into that match. Look at the team photo from that day, there’s only 14 of us – Fan was still getting his knee doctored in the dressing-room, wasn’t able to come back for the second half – a cartilage problem. But Coogan swept up everything when he came in, played very well.
DO’F: I must ask you this, Pat — did ye get a particular pleasure from beating Cork.
PH: I don’t know; I think we always felt we could match Cork , and that was something. Cork were the team to beat in all those years; in 72 and 82 particularly, they had stormed through Munster, won very convincingly. We looked at the way they were being built up, but we fancied our chances.
We usually tended to go in as underdogs against Cork — I don’t know why, but we did. From that point of view, it’s always more satisfying when you do win. I’d say Limerick this Sunday, if they win, their satisfaction will be enormous. It’s one thing to win it after so many years, but to win as underdogs, that’s even better. And the funny thing is, we always seemed to succeed, when we went in as underdogs, that’s why I’m a worried about this Sunday. I don’t think we perform as well when we’re favourites, and that’s a fact.
DO’F: Is it true, what Barry Henriquez told me, that he once asked you when you knew ye were going to beat Limerick in the 1974 All-Ireland final, and you said, immediately after the final whistle in ‘73?
PH: That’s a fact. I’ve said this many times, that Limerick team deserved to win an All- Ireland, either in 73 or 74. If we’d beaten them in 73, I’m convinced they’d have come back to beat us in 74, that team was good enough.
But after you’re beaten in a final, there are so many things in your favour; you’re now a more hungry team, and the first thing that enters your mind is – how can we win this next year? How can we come back and beat this team? And I felt it would be Limerick again, they were that good. But we had the hunger in 74, and it started after the 73 final. That was what I meant.
DO’F: What about today’s game, how would you rate it?
PH: If you take the whole setup now, it’s all gone very professional. Back in the 70’s we had Mick Lanigan and Tommy Maher, end of story; now you have doctors and physios and physical trainers and dieticians, the whole lot. You’d have to say it’s come on, that with the modern techniques and training methods fellas are faster, fitter, stronger, that’s a fact, whether in athletics, rugby, any sport. All that has moved along. I’m not too sure, though, that the individual skills are any better than they were. I’d still rate Keher head and shoulders above any forward playing at the moment; Henry is good, but he still has a way to go.
NR: There was a real cutting-edge to Keher.
PH: Oh there was – you run into Eddie Keher, you knew all about it. And I know, I played against him often enough in club hurling. He was hard, a lot harder than people think, he’d cut you in two if he had to! And he was a big man, hips to here, he’d go through you for a shortcut.
But he would take some beating, for skill, strength, determination, temperament — I don’t think I’ve seen anyone since to hold a candle to him. Brilliant he was.
And Chunky – I’d rate him with Carey. He had all the skills, all the speed, all the accuracy – okay, he mightn’t have had the same dedication, but he had everything else. Was there ever a better midfield combination than Chunky and Frank Cummins?
NR: The modern game has changed as well, the corner-forward is chasing his man, hooking and blocking like a defender – that wasn’t happening in the 70’s.
PH: No, but we brought it in in 82, that was one of the things we used to beat Cork. I was in charge of that team, and we drummed it into them – we can beat Cork, but we had to stop their backs delivering quality ball. If they worked their arses off, stopped that, we’d win.
And we did. The Cork forwards never got a smell of a ball, not good ball anyway, because our forwards worked so hard at the other end, they had to live off crumbs. Any team that adopts that philosophy, where the forwards work like backs when they don’t have the ball, they’re going to be very hard to beat. Kilkenny did it last year to Cork, big-time, Limerick could do it to Kilkenny on Sunday. Lads might say it’s not a pretty game, but that’s how games are won. It’s about your approach, it’s about winning.
DO’F: What’s your opinion on the modern game, Ned?
NR: I’d say the standard today is higher than ever. The training methods are better, the players are being looked after better – and looking after themselves better. There’s a lot more time now being dedicated to training, to preparation. Even in the winter months players are in gyms, getting ready, getting stronger. But if we’d had that in the 60’s, in the 70’s, we’d have been just as good. But how much overhead hurling do you see today? How much ground hurling? We had all that.
DO’F: You’d still see it, I’ve seen plenty from the Cork and Tipperary minors this year alone.
PH: But do you see it at senior?
NR: The important point here is that in the modern game, you don’t give away possession, if you can help it. When you hit the ball, you want to know where it’s going; Willie Walsh (not Youghal) played centre-forward for the Barr’s in my time in Cork, a brilliant hurler. He was in with me a few weeks ago, complaining about the modern game – ‘‘You never see overhead hurling now, boy!”
Willie, I said, when you doubled overhead on a ball, did you know where it was going? He didn’t, because he couldn’t. And it’s the same with the ground hurling, you weren’t sure where it was going, except it was heading towards the opposition goal. It looks fantastic, great skill, but that’s not enough in the modern game.
Unless you’re controlling where the ball is going, you’re not going to strike.
PH: Exactly. You see these fellas even still, they hit a magnificent line-ball, beautifully struck, the crowd applauds, but the ball goes wide. What good is that to a team? Where’s the percentage in that?
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