Still thirsty at thirty

HE’S reinvented himself and hung in there when few others believed it was worth his while. So is Clyda’s Clydesdale Paudie Kissane finally about to get his just reward? He spoke to sports editor Tony Leen

AT THE time the Cork footballers trained in Ballyhooly and lighting around Larry Tompkins’ killing fields was in name only. The selectors were stationed at the four corners of the pitch to dissuade short-cutters.

“All I remember is Kissane striding out in front. He had one of those awful soccer jerseys at the time and all I could do was focus on the No 6 on his back to keep me standing,” recalls one Cork colleague at the time. “I never saw the front of that jersey.”

The just retired Cork junior coach Mossie Barrett shakes his head at the mention of Paudie Kissane’s herculean stamina and shape.

“He’d be an animal, and I mean that in the nicest sense,” Barrett says. “Like, he’s legendary even inside at Cork training.”

In setting out to discover how Clyda Rovers’ Paudie Kissane has gone from peripheral presence to probable All Star, it’s instructive to start now rather than then.

In a season of upheaval and musical chairs, he’s the defensive constant for Cork. Miskella, Canty and Lynch have been crocked, Jamie O’Sullivan’s finding his feet, Shields is Red Adair and Noelie’s been there and not there. His only rival for stability is his own Clyda colleague Ray Carey.

Think. Carey and Kissane, Cork’s defensive linchpins.

“Conor (Counihan) has always drilled into us, if you get a chance, take it. At the start of this season, Johnny (Miskella) and Graham (Canty) were carrying a few injuries and that meant I got a run of games.

“We won the League and then things went well in Killarney (where he scored three points and was named man-of-the-match in the draw with Kerry). You’ll have advisers that you listen to, outside the Cork set-up I mean, and you’ll respect their opinion but ultimately it comes back to hard work and not giving up.”

And if we wanted to tidy this away and move on to tomorrow’s work that is essentially was Paudie Kissane is about. Shaking off the bad stuff and moving on.

“When he came in first under Larry Tompkins, himself and Conor McCarthy would have been the most aerobically fit players in the squad, but they were blown away physically by others,” says a former inter-county colleague.

“It seems to me when he went away to (do a sports science degree at Strawberry Hill) London, he made a conscious decision to bulk himself up. Now he’s less of an athlete and more of a physical presence.”

Nevertheless, a broken hand in the 2008 Munster semi-final against Limerick stopped him cold. Tell the truth, you wrote him off too at that stage, because most did.

“There would have been a school of thought that the chance had passed him by,” agrees Mossie Barrett, who is now Kissane’s coach at Clyda.

“He was approaching 30 and with the U21s (and Cork juniors) winning All-Irelands, the sense was that there would be a clutch of fellas coming through. There has been, but nobody has dislodged Paudie.”

Because, explains Barrett, Kissane is “an extremely strong-willed character”.

“He’s an out-and-out leader,” his coach says. “He has crazy self-belief which is so admirable. We were all looking at what was going on with Cork and there was a fear that when he was around the place for such a while, and hadn’t cemented a place, that he might be thrown by the wayside.

“But during all that time, you could see his attitude was ‘give me an extended run in the team to prove myself’.”

Winning that reassurance hasn’t widened his swagger though. Every night after Cork training Kissane and Carey take the Mallow road home to greet the Clyda players as they finish training.

Having two players in an All-Ireland semi-final has energised the parish of Mourneabbey.

“Before the Limerick (qualifier) game, Clyda took on Oola in one of those Go Games and it was like an All-Ireland final in terms of excitement in the club,” Kissane smiles. “It’s nice to have two fellas on from an intermediate club and it might drive on another generation of young fellas for Clyda. That’s the bigger picture.”

KISSANE has a better sense of the macro for the GAA. In his employed status as one of five games development administrators in Cork, he has a front-line role in the preservation of football and hurling as the national games of the future. Getting to this point, however, took him off to London in his mid-20s to study up on sports science.

“I retrained, did three years in London that only finished in 2008. I’d have huge interest in that area. When I started there was a sense that rugby in the professional era had moved on quickly and was a lot more advanced than the GAA because it was now professional. In London, we were encouraged to go and watch the likes of Chelsea train; theory is one thing but seeing top-level pros put this in practice is another.”

Forever questioning, though. “Of course, you’d often come out from watching these guys with even more questions than answers because sports science is constantly evolving. But if you’re training or involved in a team, for instance, it gives you more self belief. Rather than doing a drill I learned from someone else, I’d have confidence in what I’m doing and would feel it’s right. A greater understanding of what’s done.”

Kissane’s point of compare for the GAA is the biennial International Rules series where amateur fitness stands toe-to-toe with professional. The trick, he believes, is to find ways to keep narrowing the gap.

“The key issue for the GAA is the demands on players. At Chelsea, it’s one team and the coaches have sole control over the player and what he is doing in terms of recovery and prehab. Here, a GAA player might go off with his club and play another match. We’re doing much the same stuff but we’re not always getting the same results out of it because a) players aren’t getting the same recovery time and b) they’re not doing as much of it because, obviously, they have work too. However, generally speaking, we’re in savage shape.”

“The way he takes care of himself,” says Mossie Barrett, “is a lesson in itself. I still think there’s so much left in the tank. You saw in Killarney what can happen when the shackles are thrown off.”

You broach the subject of his age gingerly, but the bleep tests don’t lie. “It isn’t backwards I’m gone anyway,” he shrugs. “Graham Canty and Anthony Lynch, the likes of those lads lead by example. If you’re not putting in the effort, you’ll get found out. We are a big team but there are other big teams now, the gap is closing. Yes you have to have the power and the strength to take a tackle but at the end of the day it’s football.”

Kissane’s nine to five is spent in the Duhallow division, passionate football territory on the border with Kerry.

“We (the five Cork coaches) have our own area to look after and generally charged with raising the standards of the game at all levels, starting with the coaches right down to the six- and eight-year-olds. We coach both, but there’s a greater impact if you can get at the coaches. We’re working more in primary schools than secondary, but that will change in September. In primary school, the love of the game is still there. It will always come back to the one or two teachers who drive it on, are involved with their clubs and bring that into the school.”

THE battleground for tomorrow’s stars. “You are fighting for a portion of the market. Rugby is getting their full-time coaches in, and they can promise kids the world. They’ll say ‘look at Paul O’Connell’ or even someone in Tipp can see Denis Leamy, who might still be their next door neighbour. The Munster thing is big, but look at the numbers playing hurling and football in schools. We take that for granted sometimes, but they are still very big.”

At GAA Congress this year, the Go Games concept was formally ratified, stirring a debate on the necessity for competitiveness at primary school level. A good or bad thing. Good if you believe that Johnny Average gets trampled in the rush for cups and medals, bad if you feel competition hones a youngster’s winning instincts.

Kissane tends to lean towards the former argument.

“There is too much pressure put on kids,” he says. “People will argue that we will lose kids to other sports because there isn’t that ‘competition’ there, but throw a ball between two kids and they’ll fight for it. That’s competition. I wonder sometimes if it’s the parents missing it more than the kids. I’ve seen U12 Championship games drawing bigger crowds than a senior championship fixture, and that’s massive pressure for kids.

“This whole Go Games idea will be reviewed and it may be tweaked but I think the philosophy is the way forward.”

Of course, going to work as an All-Ireland champion would be an attention-holder. “It can only be massive for promotion,” he nods. So?

“The focus is always on playing well, and we’ve done that in patches. But looking at Dublin’s work-rate against Tyrone – immense, off the charts – it’s going to take a level or two up for us,” Kissane suggests.

Not that Kissane nor his colleagues are bothered how they win an All-Ireland this term.

2010 is all about getting over that line. Crawl or sprint, whatever.

“Some teams have set up to stop us from playing, but you know what? I’m not one for looking back. What I can say is that training has been going well; there’s a fierce positive vibe there. You’re slogging and doing gym work in October, so how can you not get excited about this?”

He’s been around and about with Cork since 2003, flashing impressively into our consciousness under the February lights at Páirc ui Rinn. Injury has stymied him but this year Clyda’s Clydesdale has shimmered under the summer light. Paudie Kissane’s time is now. So is Cork’s.