Oak Leafer O’Kane chasing a summertime high

TRY as he might, Gerard O’Kane couldn’t kick the habit.

He could hardly have done more to try. Winter had wrapped Ireland in its cold embrace when he and cousin Paddy Bradley decided a stint in Australia was what they needed to flush the toxins of a difficult summer out of the system.

They started off with four weeks in Melbourne and spent another two in Sydney before hitting the road.

They made for the well-worn tourist route that would take them up the east coast through New South Wales and into Queensland.

Out there, they were no longer Derry footballers, just two Irish lads driving jeeps around the sand-covered Fraser Island and looking to shed their pasty complexions on one of the boats circling around the Whitsundays.

O’Kane loved every minute of it but the disappointments of the previous summer, when Derry failed to reach an Ulster final and Monaghan knocked them off the first rung of qualifiers, never dissolved. He couldn’t fully let go.

“We have been beaten in the Ulster semi-final the last four years but it’s very addictive. If you are on the sideline you would be tearing your hair out because there is nothing you can do about it. It gives you that adrenalin. It gives you something to do in the evenings.

“It is a drug.”

In the end, he gave in. Resistance was futile. Originally due back in February, the pair decided instead to come home a few weeks early so they could catch the start of Derry’s campaign in the National League.

They touched down in Ireland on a Thursday and O’Kane was lining out against Mayo in Ballina 10 days later. He didn’t kiss the ground on disembarking but he was glad to be back where he belonged nonetheless.

“Football gave normality back to my life. Once you are away they say you nearly need a holiday after a holiday, which I found to be true with the fact I was away for three months.

“You get up and try to work your nine to five but you have been away in Australia which has a nice, warm climate. To come back home here in January wasn’t nice!”

If anyone needed the break, it was O’Kane. He soldiered beside Bradley on the minor team that won the All-Ireland for Derry in 2002 but six years on the senior panel has been long on commitment and short on achievement. He has never been on a summer holiday and, though he says a run out in Clones or Croke Park beats a week in Spain any day, summers like last year wear a man down.

“It is not easy to cope with it. It is mentally very tough to get over. Ten days after you get beaten in the championship you find that the game is still going over and over in your mind.

“The only thing you can do to get over it is to get back playing football. You can do that with your club now because the club game is so competitive. It gives you something to do. Over time, you don’t forget about it but you move forward.”

That is the attitude with which he is approaching tomorrow’s Ulster clash with Monaghan who turfed them out of the province in 2007 before doubling the dose in the qualifiers 13 months later.

Revenge doesn’t interest O’Kane. Derry are playing with bigger chips tomorrow. The last time the county ruled Ulster was 1998 and they haven’t been to a final since 2000.

Not for the first time, Derry approach the summer with a positive spring. Damian Cassidy used his first competition in charge to extend the depth of his panel with the number of players used reaching the mid-30s. The team’s style has been diversified, fitness levels have increased and, unlike 12 months ago, they can concentrate on the championship without the dreaded league winners’ curse they hate.

They are ready.

“Every team wants to make the breakthrough but Monaghan will be thinking the exact same as us,” O’Kane cautions. “They have got to a final in the last few years, we haven’t, so they will feel that they have more of a right to make the breakthrough than we do. All we can do is win our first game.”

Once more into the breach then. Old habits die hard.