Graham aiming to recant for All-Ireland final loss

DESPITE being one of eight captains invited to Croke Park to launch the 2008 GAA Football Championship yesterday, it came as no surprise that most people wanted to talk to Graham Canty about the 2007 version instead, and the final in particular.

The Cork captain certainly required a thick skin when MC Des Cahill delivered a gag at the expense of the county’s disappointment last September.

The punchline was inadvertently set up by Vodafone Ireland chief executive Charles Butterworth, an Englishman unfamiliar with GAA, who revealed it had taken him some time to figure out what was going on during the game.

“Don’t worry,” quipped Cahill, “most of the Cork lads didn’t know much about it either.”

The subsequent strike may or may not have more of a practical effect on the county’s aspirations this summer but their campaign will most certainly be coloured by the events of last September.

“It was a tough one to take,” admitted Canty. “We lost to Kerry in an All-Ireland final and it is hard to lose to Kerry at any time. We didn’t play well on the day which is particularly disappointing. When you come up to Croke Park to play an All-Ireland final you want to do yourself justice, number one, and come out with a victory, number two. We did neither.”

He continued: “Kerry played very well and punished a couple of the mistakes we made. The couple of months afterwards were tough. You have to learn from it. You don’t just turn away from it. We’ll be trying to do that this year.”

Things actually got worse for the Cork footballers in the months that followed with the onset of a second strike in five years. Even with Kieran Mulvey and Pauric Duffy on board as mediators, things looked bleak the longer the issue dragged on and Canty admits that he feared for the county’s championship participation this year.

“There were probably a couple of moments,” he concurred. “Things weren’t looking great there around the middle of February. There was a chance that you wouldn’t play football this year, that you wouldn’t play for Cork again. If you are out of football for a year you would be very lucky to come back into it and perform and with injury and everything else. You tried to put that to the back of your mind and just tried to make sure that everything worked out. Thankfully, it did.”

Though the matter was finally put to bed, Canty believes there were no benefits to be accrued from it, no “huge winners” and the bottom line is that the side missed out on two crucial league games. The only possible upside is that, on the back of the All-Ireland defeat, the side will certainly not lack for hunger and the five league games under new manager Conor Counihan have been positive for the most part. “Conor has done very well,” said Canty. “He has come in when we were under pressure to get a few points straight away. Luckily we did. We got a couple of good performances. He has probably been restricted by not having the full seven games and maybe Conor and the lads weren’t able to try out as many lads or systems as they would have liked, but it was very important that we maintained our Division Two status and we did that.”

And so to the months ahead. Limerick or Tipperary will be the first obstacle in Munster but the shadow of Kerry looms largest, as ever, with the two rivals expected to meet in the provincial decider due to the reinstated seeding system in the province. Derry unveiled the blueprint on how to recover from a traumatic opening against the Kingdom in last Sunday’s win.

“I don’t think Kerry will be too concerned over the loss. If anything, they might have learned a bit from the game.”