“We want to beat Cork even if it’s at Scrabble”

FOR someone that spent eight seasons trying to get closer to Darragh O Sé around Fitzgerald Stadium, Mike Quirke is doing a convincing job putting distance between himself and the Gaeltacht powerhouse.

“I certainly wouldn’t like to get attached to a label of trying to replace Darragh. He’s irreplaceable, a freak of modern day football. Sixteen championship seasons with Kerry, virtually an ever-present,” gushes the midfielder.

“He’s either been man-of-the-match or close to it in most of his 80-odd championship games. That kind of stuff doesn’t happen. Darragh O Sé comes along once in a lifetime, a freak of championship football. You cannot possibly replace him, so we’re just trying to do as much as we can with what we have.”

What Kerry have, no one’s quite sure, which is a slightly disconcerting proposition for anyone trying to take down the All-Ireland football champions. Tipperary get first bite tomorrow week in Thurles at four o’clock.

If anyone has a handle on the Kingdom, it’s Tipperary boss, John Evans, by way of Knocknagoshel.

“People might dismiss Tipperary,” Quirke frowns, “but we have first hand experience of John Evans (who trained Quirke’s Kerins O’Rahillys for two seasons). He will have them running through walls waiting to get a victory over Kerry and it would really cap his coaching career in Tipperary. After winning the Munster U21 Championship game, (against Kerry in Tralee last month) I believe he was rolling around on the ground, happy as a pig in muck. If he could beat Kerry at senior, I’m not sure he’d even manage to keep his clothes on.

“He’d go mad altogether. We’re pretty intent on not letting that happen.”

If it’s possible for a 36-time champion like Kerry to come into the Championship under the radar, Jack O’Connor, multiple defections and an underwhelming league campaign have conspired to deflect the spotlight.

That plus the chatter about neighbours next door.

The Kingdom are still tinkering with a number of positions, their configurations complicated by injuries to Tommy Griffin, Daniel Bohan and Tomás O Sé in defence, David Moran in midfield and Colm Cooper in attack (though the Dr Crokes man trained this week in Killarney).

After six seasons as “the best midfielder in the county” – a back-handed put down, in a way – Quirke turned game-changer, game-saver last season. He enjoyed the responsibility of mattering, but he’s not going to be a 70-minute man at this stage of his career, so the conundrum remains for Kerry – start him or spring him from the bench when his aerial superiority can tilt the balance.

Truth is, he deserves a start but he’s better – ie will be more impactful – off the bench. It’s a toss-up who starts with Seamus Scanlon, Quirke or Duagh’s Anthony Maher, but it’s there for Quirke if he wants it bad enough.

“And it’s there too for Anthony or David Moran,” he interrupts. “We all want to start. But looking back on last season, it was a role I enjoyed. I saw it as a privileged role because I was being brought on to do a job and close out a game.”

The Kerry selectors must be sorely tempted, though, to keep Quirke in reserve. Make him The Closer, the relief pitcher. Kerry’s Mariano Rivera. Not least, because there’s a worrying shallowness to the Kingdom’s bench that is an inevitable by-product of losing up to 10 squad members in the last 18 months (including Mike Frank Russell, Sean O’Sullivan and Eoin Brosnan).

“There’s a regeneration there,” Quirke, engaging company with or without a dictaphone, protests.

“A lot of younger players coming in are mad for the bit because they haven’t been in with Kerry before. They are giving a huge energy and a buzz that wasn’t there and that’s encouraging.

“We were very encouraged with how the League went, even though people will say we were near to relegation. It was probably a more competitive League for us than it was last year, even though we won it in 2009. There were games when we found out an awful lot about fellas whereas last year we just coasted through the League and beat Derry in the final. That papered over cracks that didn’t come to the surface until the Championship.”

But the drain on experience? “There was a drain, but we have been saying for years that there is a great depth of talent in Kerry. It is a matter of harnessing that and getting guys to step up to the plate. We have had plenty of rookies who have gone on to have fantastic years – Tommy Walsh wasn’t a seasoned footballer last year and he was nearly man-of-the-match in the All-Ireland final. We’re hopeful we’ll be fine.”

The rest of us aren’t as convinced. The disappointment since last September’s memorable 36th All-Ireland success against Cork has been the lack of squad members that have kicked on, bullied management into selecting them. Paul O’Connor’s gone backwards, Barry John Walsh’s form dipped – though he was back training this week – and Anthony Maher has yet to leave it all out there on the pitch. Pádraig Reidy has yet to convince he’s a top of the ground corner back. It leads one to conclude that another run through the Qualifiers is not an option for a side that has played in six successive September finals. It also means that if Kerry beat Tipperary, Munster GAA will get a real Kerry-Cork clash in Killarney because the hosts couldn’t afford NOT to show their hand this time.

“But we said the same thing last year,” Quirke points out. “We were fully intent on winning the Munster Championship, beating Cork and going through the front door. People said we were too old, this and that, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. If we got over Cork last year – and we could have done, it would have papered over the cracks and we would have been blown away in Croke Park.

“That route probably saved us. But our goal at the start of every year is to win the Munster Championship.”

The cumulative loss of experience, ergo leadership, through the retirements of Diarmuid Murphy and Darragh O Sé and the defections of Tadhg Kennelly, Aidan O’Mahony and Tommy Walsh is impossible to regenerate in such a short space of time; thus the champions will need more leaders that captain Bryan Sheehan in the dressing room. Quirke is one such, but he says there is a generous sprinkling of follow-my-example characters present.

“There are guys that you wouldn’t even be familiar with have leadership roles in the dressing-room. Mike McCarthy wouldn’t say boo to a fly but is a huge leader in the dressing-room and on the field. It’s a different form of leadership to maybe Galvin or Darragh O Sé or Donaghy. It takes all different types of leaders. We have plenty of talkers. Trying to get guys to shut up is harder than to get guys talking! So whatever we are lacking on the field it shouldn’t be leaders.”

The midfielder was in his element this week holding court and playing the genial host at the launch of the GAA’s All-Ireland Football Championship at O’Rahillys’ Strand Road clubhouse. When Dublin’s Alan Brogan was asked who Dublin expected to play in September’s final by MC Ger Canning, he suggested Cork. Quirke was next in line and deadpanned to the audience: “I was going to say Dublin, but not after that answer!”

Nevertheless, he doesn’t deviate from the conventional wisdom when the state of the parties is broached. Of course, hoisting Cork on a pedestal suits him.

“It’s great. It’s the same thing as last year going in against Dublin – they were this unbeatable, unmoveable object and there was no way stumbling, bumbling Kerry were going to beat them. We were relishing that. It was just set up for a Kerry victory. People were doing a good job of blowing up Dublin. Now Cork are the team playing the best football and that’s fine at this time of year – that’s okay.

“We have beaten them in Croke Park, but they are dangerous opposition. They are full of footballers and athletes, they have forwards who can score and they have a core of backs. If it’s not this year or next year, it won’t be long because Cork football is going too well not to win an All-Ireland.”

They may get an early sight of each other on June 6, but Quirke remains wary of Tipperary and Evans. “He instils steel and a harder mentality in players. He breaks guys down and brings them back up again. He tries to get the most out of any bunch of players. He’s constantly on the phone, he’s ringing, he’s cajoling guys and he’s a great motivator.”

Defeating Tipp catapults the Kingdom into a clash with Cork and there’s no cup on offer that day either. A hard one to rise to? “Not for the players. If you were in our dressing room five minutes before we go out to play Cork in a Munster final or semi-final, you would see that in no way, shape or form is the game diminished in the players’ view. We want to go out and beat Cork if we’re playing scrabble – regardless of what stage it’s at.

“The sight of the red jersey on the field and in the terrace… any time we play Cork it’s not a diminished game.”

Last Wednesday night at training, Quirke landed beside the wiry Tom O’Sullivan as the players sprinted up the back field at Fitzgerald Stadium. Creatures great and small.

“Tom’s a guy that would really annoy you,” he smiles. “He could go out, have chips, quarter pounders and mayonnaise and wouldn’t put on an ounce. Whereas I’m looking at a leaf of lettuce and kind of going ‘yeah, maybe I’ll cut that in two.’ That’s the way it is with me. It is just a matter of watching your diet and going to the gym that extra bit while Tom is sitting at home watching tv.”

Without National League basketball to bring him through the winter temptress – Tralee Tigers were another of the recession’s victims – Quirke admits that he over-egged the pudding after last September’s All-Ireland. But there were compensations – like meeting Usain Bolt in Jamaica on a team holiday.

“He couldn’t have done more for us. It was like a complete role reversal for us. We were going up to him like five-year-olds with our jerseys hanging out and saying ‘please sign this.’ He couldn’t sign enough, he posed for pictures until he was blue in the face. It gives you a bit of perspective of when people come up to you, as a footballer, and how humble the guy was.”

Nobody approaching Quirke has anything to worry about on that score.