Ó Sé exit marks the end of an era
That’s the view of the top midfielders who faced Ó Sé over the past 15 years and who claim he’s the last of a dying breed, committed to catch-and-kick midfield play.
Twice All-Ireland winning Galway midfielder Kevin Walsh, for example, claimed Ó Sé possessed ‘all the aspects of the game needed’ by a truly great midfielder.
Yet his grave fear is that for every Ó Sé, Ciaran Whelan or Paul McGrane that exits the stage there is nothing like the sort of adequate replacements needed coming through.
“Football has struggled in the last six or seven years for midfielders,” said Walsh. “Before that you had six or seven lads on a level, the likes of Darragh, Paul McGrane, John McDermott, Anthony Tohill, Ciaran Whelan.
“But over the last seven years or so things haven’t been that strong. People will say players like Darragh Ó Sé are few and far between and that’s correct but there’s more to it than that. Football is changing around midfield and you’re just not getting the Darragh O Se’s coming through now.”
The common consensus is that an obsession with breaking ball has led to a different type of midfielder being born, one without the same high fielding instincts that made Ó Sé great.
Three time All-Ireland winning Tyrone midfielder Kevin Hughes, who rates Ó Sé as his toughest opponent along with McGrane and Dermot Earley, takes some of the blame from the shift in emphasis.
“Back when Darragh started with Kerry, midfield was more so just the four players battling it out, it was all high fielding at that stage,” said Hughes.
“Darragh was very good at that and excelled at it. But I suppose a lot of people would recognise that the success we’ve had in Tyrone has been built on a different sort of approach. It’s about the half-forward line and the half-back line playing their part more now around the middle, primary and first possession are important but so is winning breaking ball.”
Galway’s Joe Bergin believes that Ó Sé was easily the midfielder of his generation.
“He was the finest fielder of the ball I’ve ever come up against. I would have played International Rules with him as well and his skills were well suited to that game. His outstanding strength was always his fielding of the ball. It’s a skill that we haven’t seen so much of in the last few years but his fielding was just class.”
Darragh he was never able to reel in his uncle Páidí on the All-Ireland medal count. Darragh won six to Páidí’s eight back in the golden era of the 1970s and 1980s. But Kevin Walsh believes Darragh may still have done enough, however, to claim the family bragging rights.
“In today’s terms, six is probably as good as 10 in those times,” said Walsh. “The back door thing is massive now. Definitely there’s no doubt that every team out there has gone far more professional than they ever were before. Back in the 70s and 80s you wouldn’t have had the same amount of contenders and when you beat a team they stayed beaten.”
Kerry coach Jack O’Connor recalled two examples where Ó Sé’s presence was the difference between victory and defeat for Kerry.
“One of the games that stands out for me was the 2004 drawn Munster final in Limerick when he caught a couple of balls that were going over the crossbar and earned us a draw against Limerick.
“The other one was the 2006 All-Ireland quarter-final against Armagh when his second-half performance really turned the tide in our favour. That was a big game for Kerry football because in three of the previous four years we had been beaten by northern opposition.”
The three Ó Sé brothers are known to be strong personalities in the dressing room, but not excessively so, says O’Connor.
“Darragh was a good man to have in the dressing room. The one thing I would say about the Ó Sé’s is that when the put their minds to it, they are great men to train. They are great leaders on the field.”
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