Seán Óg: The Blue blood on the airwaves
Easy to understand, then, why the hurlers from that era and before have gained so much satisfaction from what has been achieved in the winning of the Allianz League title earlier in the year and their courageous performance against Kilkenny yesterday.
Take veteran broadcaster Seán Óg Ó Ceallacháin for instance. He’s not just excited about the progress made over the last decade, he rates this as “the best Dublin team ever” — annoying a few former players in the process. And, as he rightly points out, a lot of people had worked hard to bring the team to the stage it was when Anthony Daly took over two years ago.
Seán Óg is 88 and long before he became the longest serving broadcaster in the world (his Sunday night GAA results programme on RTÉ ran for over 58 years), he was an accomplished hurler.
And, he has the distinction of playing against both Mickey Mackey and Christy Ring.
In 1946, he was a member of the last Dublin team to contest a league final prior to this year. His brother Seamus also played and they lost to a Clare team captained by Anthony Daly’s uncle ‘Haulie’.
Two years later he played in the All-Ireland final, which marked the first of Waterford’s two title wins, and missed out on another appearance in the 1952 decider against Cork because of a broken jaw.
Unlike his older brother, Seán Óg was born in Newcastlewest, where his father found employment with Nash’s after the mineral water firm he worked with in Dublin had their premises burned down during the troubles. His father was a native of Co Tyrone while his mother came from Ballyhahill, outside Newcastlewest and the family only spent a few years in Limerick before returning to the capital.
In the early part of the last century Dublin teams were almost entirely built around players from outside the county. For example, there was only one ‘native’ on the team which defeated Waterford in the 1938 final and just four 10 years later when Seán Óg played.
In the time, a requirement that players had to be born in Dublin to be eligible for the county team had the effect of lowering standards and it coincided with an upsurge in football standards.
He began his career with St Vincent’s but after graduating from minor ranks his father arranged for him to transfer to the Eoghan Ruadh club — for the reason that they were graded senior and Vincent’s were only junior. Three years later, he played against Mick Mackey.
“In 1943 Eoghan Ruadh invited the wonder team from the south to play in Croke Park in a senior hurling challenge and that was Ahane — the Limerick champions,” he said.
“It was very unusual to bring a team from outside Dublin to play a challenge and a big crowd turned up. They had Mick Mackey, John Mackey, Timmy Ryan and Paddy Scanlan — all their greats at that time.
“Mick Mackey won the match for them. We were leading by two points with a minute to go and Mackey got the ball, barged his way through the Eoghan Ruadh defence. I can tell you he knew he was going through a hail of thunder and lightning… he was belted on all sides but still stuck the ball in the net.”
In later years he played against Christy Ring, in the national league.
“He was one of the best hurlers I played against even though I was at midfield and he was right-half-forward at the time. But we did meet down in Fermoy when he played at midfield and I was marking him.
“I knew all his little tricks. He came up to me with a ball and I was going to the right as he went, or going to the left. But I didn’t reckon with Christy’s big hips and as I fell to the ground the ball was sailing over the bar.
“In my mind he was the greatest of them all.”
He accords a similar accolade to the current Dublin team. With the exploits of the 1945-’46 team being recalled in the context of the county’s winning appearance in this season’s league final, he was recently asked which team did he believe was the best.
“I said without any shadow of a doubt that it was the 2011 team. The best Dublin team I have every seen up to now.
“Now, that didn’t go down too well with Jimmy Grey (ex-Dublin and Leinster chairman). He challenged me one day. He asked me about the ‘61 team [he was goalkeeper when they contested the All-Ireland final against Tipperary] and I said, ‘yes, they were a good team, but they didn’t win. The ‘48 was a great team but we didn’t win!
“This current team went out against a team that had won four All-Irelands in a row. They had earlier beaten Kilkenny in the Walsh Cup final and then turned around and beat the same Kilkenny team in the league final. That was the greatest performance I have ever seen from a Dublin side and I would stand behind what I said. The way they have improved, the way they can play. They are now copying Kilkenny themselves in many facets of the game that Kilkenny were noted for the hand-passing, the man-for-man marking.”
Seán Óg agrees that the modern game is more attractive to watch.
“The quick hand-pass has speeded it up and that leads to more exciting passages of play,” he says. And he doesn’t hanker after the older style of ground hurling and aerial striking.
“Everybody is predisposed to having to pick up the ball and go on a solo run. It’s a different trend to my day. Your job was to ‘get’ the ball and hit it — and that was the work done. Now, players are faster, they are fitter and they are more involved in the play.”
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