Old warriors still in love with the game

IN their day, Jimmy Doyle and Eddie Keher played on two of the greatest teams of all time. Both were automatic selections on the GAA teams of the century and millennium, filling the corner-forward positions. They met and discussed those bygone days.

Diarmuid O’Flynn (DO’F): Talk to me first about the Tipperary team of the ’60s.

Jimmy Doyle (JD): We had won the 1958 All-Ireland but we really came good around the early 60s, ’61/’62. They were a good bunch of fellas, and to be honest and fair about it, I always make out that if you have a good crew that blends in together, that’s the secret. That ’60s Tipp team did that, we were great friends. We won back-to-back All-Irelands twice, in ’61/’62 and in ’64/’65, a great bunch.

DO’F: How close did ye come to the five in-a-row?

JD: Waterford beat us well in ’63. I don’t know what happened to us that year but if we’d won three in a row we mightn’t have come back to win the other two. You must remember too, Waterford were very good that time, they had a great team, always gave us a very hard game in Munster. In 1959, the year they won the All-Ireland, they put up a huge score against us in the first half, the day of the big wind. Micheál O’Hehir was doing a football game that day and he got an update on our game at half-time, and wouldn’t believe it, said it must be a joke — I think Waterford were something like 8-3 to 1-2 ahead (it was actually 8-2 to 0-0) and he made out it was a mistake, that it couldn’t be. When he came back to it at full-time, sure he knew. But at half-time that day the Tipperary team didn’t want to come back out, a lot of the players didn’t want to go back out — sure the game was over. That loss really upset us, it kind of threw everything out of gear, but we regrouped and came back.

Eddie Keher (EK:): Waterford were brilliant. They had a strong backbone, physically powerful from full-back to full-forward, with great hurlers on the wings, really dangerous — they played a great style of hurling, were really unfortunate to win only one All-Ireland. Kilkenny beat them very luckily in ’57, Tipp won in ’58, Waterford won in ’59 after a replay, but then that great Tipp team came through in ’60, ’61. We beat them in the final of ’63, a high-scoring game, but they were going over the top at that stage.

DO’F: Ye came very close to five in-a-row also — there was that famous win in 1967 (Kilkenny’s first championship win against Tipperary in four decades), ye won again in ’69, then reached five finals in a row from 1971 to ’75, winning three.

EK: We did come close but Limerick deserved their All-Ireland. Like Jimmy’s team in the ’60s, we came good in the ’70s. Tipp beat us in ’71 — you were injured that day Jimmy — but we came back in ’72 and won, lost to Limerick in ’73 but came back and beat them in ’74, won again in ’75. If we’d win in ’73 though who knows what would have happened in ’74? That was as near as we came to four in a row.

DO’F: Which of those teams was better?

EK: It’s very hard to judge.

JD: This current Kilkenny team, the team that won four in a row, they’re a great bunch. To win four in a row is a fantastic achievement, and they did back-to-back titles before that as well so they won six in eight years.

EK: And a super bunch of guys as well, lovely lads, as modest — I’ve never known any one of them to be boastful.

JD: Maybe that’s why they’re winning so much. They seem to be a very united bunch, a great bond. Cork beat them but they came back to win four in a row. Aren’t some of them going for their eighth All-Ireland medal?

EK: They are, Henry and Michael Kavanagh. I’d say they’re the greatest team ever.

DO’F: What about in your own playing days — people often talk of how much harder the game was back then, How tough was it for a forward?

JD: Tough enough. They were bigger players, and of course the ball was heavier — the distance they’re getting from the ball now, you see Cummins dropping the puckout on the other 21-yard line, no bother.

EK: A free now up to 80 yards out is scoreable, whereas in our day it was a great thing to score a 70. You had the big heavy ball, and the wetter the day the heavier it got.

JD: The hurleys are much different too; the bás is a lot bigger now, and they’re all shorter — I noticed a lot of the Dublin players against Tipperary had very short hurleys, like little spoons in their hands. That’s what I used to play with, I’d cut them down myself — you can control the ball a lot better with the short hurley.

EK: I often wondered about your hurl — it contributed to a few of your injuries?

JD: Well I suppose you were nearer to the ball, and I did get a lot of breaks around the hand. Of course it was the ankle break that nearly finished me, Jimmy Brohan in the Munster final of 1961. He wasn’t dirty, but when you’re getting struck down there and the ball is over your head, there’s something wrong! !In the ‘64 All-Ireland, against Wexford, I was going out for a ball and next thing I got this belt across the shoulder, broke me collar-bone — Nick O’Donnell. They were big, the Wexford men, over six foot.

EK: It was tough that time that players were entitled to challenge a forward coming in with a ball, the back was entitled to come out and floor you — it was up to yourself to mind yourself. And you accepted that. If a fella is coming through like that today and is met and falls, it’s a yellow card. I don’t want to appear to be saying everything was better in our day, but that was par for the course and you accepted it, you had to mind yourself.

DO’F: Ye both played minor and senior championship in the same year, what was that like for a youngster?

JD: I won a minor All-Ireland in ’57 but I also played a league final that year, and won my first senior in ’58.

DO’F: Did you get a hot reception?

JD: Not really — you’ll always get the belts. I actually played in the league in ’56, against Galway, I was only 17. I was on the panel that year — Paddy Leahy [legendary Tipp manager], when he thought you had the talent he was always trying to bed you in, he was good like that. We called him the Boss. Ye had Paddy Grace, a good one too.

EK: Yes, and Fr Tommy Maher was another great.

DO’F: Didn’t you play in the minor and senior finals on the same day?

EK: No, same year but not same day. We lost the minor final against Tipp in ’59.

JD: That’s right, my brother Paddy played that day.

EK: The senior match, Kilkenny against Waterford, ended in a draw — incidentally that was the last draw in a final, Seamus Power got a goal [for Waterford] with the last puck. I was brought onto the senior panel for the replay, in October, a month later, came on as a sub after quarter of an hour. It wasn’t my debut, there was a Walsh Cup match and an Oireachtas game between the two finals.

DO’F: I thought it was dangerous for a youngster?

EK: I was fairly big and fast, and if a fella hit me he’d feel it as much as I would. But it’s like Jimmy said, you don’t think of these things. You’re in a dressing room with lads you idolised — Seán Clohessy, Ollie Walsh and all those lads — what more would you look for at 17 years of age?

DO’F: And was no-one designated to look after the young fella?

JD: Oh God no! Everyone had to look after himself. I was small but I was cute, always knew where the ball would drop, got in there, then was gone before the other fella had his mind made up. You were the same Eddie.

EK: There’s a story from that time, a county board meeting. Kilkenny were looking for a full-back and some fella from Muckalee stood up and said, ‘We have the man for ye; he’s six foot, he’s 15 stone, well sat on the ground, and a class of a savage — what more would ye want in a full-back!’

DO’F: How important was Paddy Leahy to Tipperary?

JD: Ah he was a great manager, and a great ambassador. If Paddy told you to play in goal you’d play there — anything he asked you to do, you did it, or you were in trouble! He’d look out for you too. When I broke my ankle, 1961, and I was out for a long, long time, Leahy arrived at the door one day and said ‘Jimmy, when are you coming back? It’s time for you to come back’. ‘I don’t know, Paddy,’ I said, ‘Me ankle isn’t right yet.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m going to send you to a surgeon in Dublin’, which he did. He was strict too.

For the ’64 All-Ireland final Liam Devaney called to me one night and told me to tell Paddy Leahy he wouldn’t be training. I said to him, why are asking me to do this, can’t you do it yourself? ‘I have a pig in heat,’ he said, ‘and every time she gives a grunt it’s worth another fiver to me!’ A fiver was a lot of money in those days, and jobs were scarce. I went to the field, met Leahy, and he said to me — ‘Where’s Devaney?’ ‘Oh Paddy,’ I said, ‘He’s not coming tonight, he has a pig in heat.’ ‘Get into the car!’ he said to me, and we drove out to Borrisileigh, to Devaney’s house, knocked at the door and the mother came out — ‘Where’s Billy?’ ‘He’s out the back with the sow.’ ‘Can I go through here missus?’ he said; ‘You can of course,’ and through with him, where Devaney was with the sow and she snuffling away. ‘Hi Billy, training inside tonight, come on!’ ‘Oh’ he says, ‘I’m not going in, I’m staying with the pig.’ ‘You have to come in,’ says Paddy; ‘I’m not going’ says Liam, ‘I can’t’.

‘Right,’ says Paddy, ‘If you’re not 10 minutes behind me, you’re not playing on Sunday week, you will not line out for Tipp.’ He wasn’t there, and Paddy did drop him, he was only a sub; Larry Kiely played, and he only brought Devaney in with quarter of a hour to go. No one was bigger than the team, they were all equal.

DO’F: Fr Tommy Maher?

EK: He was huge in Kilkenny hurling. I had him in St Kieran’s and he was the first man to document all the skills in hurling, to write them down and analyse them, then come up with routines to practice and perfect them. He was way ahead of his time. The drills teams are doing now and taking for granted, he devised. In the old days, for training sessions you went to the field and if someone had a ball you’d puck around for a while, then have back-and-forwards or maybe a match, but there was no organised training at the skills of the game, you did that on your own. When you see the drills being done now at training, he was the man who devised a lot of those. I saw him making hurlers from fellas in St Kieran’s by teaching them the basic skills, and it’s like everything else, people saw what he was doing, and copied it.

His whole thing was to move the ball fast; you ran and met the ball, and you didn’t have to drive it 80 yards, you just had to keep it moving — make contact, let the next man win it then. And he was a great motivator. People forget, he managed Kilkenny to seven All-Irelands. And Kilkenny were in the doldrums when he took over in 1957, hadn’t won an All-Ireland since 1947 and they won it that year.

DO’F: How did you develop your own skills?

EK: My mother had a shop at home and in the afternoon it would be quiet, she’d ask me to mind it, and I’d go outside. There was the shop window, the shop door, a hall door, and a little bit of wall between them with pebble dash.; You’d practise your control, your reaction, your catching [against the wall].

JD: Most of us did that, a ball against a wall. I used to climb into the hurling field [Semple], there was a kind of a split in the wall and you’d aim for that, and if you put the ball through you’d have to go all the way around to get it! That was for accuracy.

One of the drills Paddy Leahy had us doing, you couldn’t lift the ball into your hand, you had to play it off the stick. You’d play the first part of a training match like that, pulling on the ball all the time, and you’d get used to it — what we’d do, one fella would lift the ball for another fella coming through, you’d work together like that.

Another one he had us doing, to counteract the likes of you Eddie, on one night of training he’d switch the whole line of half-forwards into the full-forward line and bring them out, and he’d do the same with the two back lines. I was on Kieran Carey a few times at wing-forward, he’d be out of the corner, Doyle would be on the other wing, Maher in the centre, with Burns inside in the full-back line and Wall full-back – just to change things around, and it worked too.

DO’F: Who was the best you played on?

JD: John Nolan of Wexford. Tom McGarry of Limerick was another one, a great half-back — he was a handballer.

EK: I never played on him but John Nolan I always found difficult. Mick Burns of Tipperary, a lovely hurler, great stickman — I always found that the good stickmen were far more difficult than fellas who were just out to get you.

JD: They were too. Another great half-back was Martin Coogan of Kilkenny, he covered the whole half-back line.

EK: He’d great vision. You were great to read the play but so was he, which made him a difficult opponent.

JD: I remember we were playing ye in a league final, and meself and Devaney were in bed. He was left-half forward, I was on the right, and I said to him, ‘You know Billy, I was down in Castlecomer the other day and Fr Kerins asked me to go to the field; Martin Coogan was hurling and he was at right-half back, I went left-half forward and I was able to manage him over there, he wasn’t able to cover from right to left’. I suggested to Devaney that we should switch sides, but he said ‘Sure I wouldn’t be able to manage Coogan at all’. ‘I’m not able for him either,’ I said, ‘but I want to win a league final, I want to win a trip to the States and we have a better chance if we switch sides.’ I got up out of the bed, went down on the elevator, met Paddy Leahy standing at the counter — ‘Ah Jaysus Jimmy,’ he said, ‘You’re not gone to bed yet.’ ‘I am,’ I said, ‘but I was talking to Devaney and I have the move that will win the league final for us tomorrow.’ ‘What do you mean?’ he said; ‘You know twill be very hard to beat Kilkenny, but if you switch me over to the left tomorrow, left-half forward, Devaney on the right, they’ll switch Coogan over after me.’ ‘How do you know Coogan can’t hurl you over there?’, he said; ‘Didn’t I hurl on him there last Sunday week in Castlecomer, and he couldn’t hurl there at all, by the time he turned I had the ball gone!’ Leahy says to Devaney, ‘Right Liam, you’re right-half forward, Jimmy you’re on the left.’ ‘Ah Jaysus no!’ says Devaney — ‘You’ll do what you’re told!’ says Leahy, ‘But ye can’t make the shift till the ball leaves the ref’s hand at the throw-in’ — that was the rule that time, you had to line out as selected.

As soon as the ball was thrown in I was gone, and Coogan followed me — we won well. Afterwards I went back down to Castlecomer with my four kids and there was a knock at the door — Martin Coogan, and he very upset: ‘What in the name of Christ brought you over to far side last Sunday?’ he said; ‘I copped you in the training-session we had here,’ I said, ‘So you can blame Fr Kerins!’ But Coogan was a great half-back. We had our own ways, with tactics, even back then.

DO’F: A lot of it came from the players themselves?

EK: It didn’t happen a lot with Kilkenny, we relied on Fr Maher for most of it. He’d devise systems and tactics for most teams we were facing. When he came on the scene Wexford were dominating. They had invented the high catch, the protection of the hand with the hurley; before that everyone just pulled on the high ball but they perfected the high catch, and they were very good in the air. That first year, 1957, Leinster final, he got the short puckout from Ollie (Walsh, keeper) to the two midfielders who were standing out on the wing — there was no high ball stuck in the Leinster final that year. No matter who got the ball it was delivered low, and we bet them out the gate.

DO’F: I have to say ye’re the two freshest looking septuagenarians I’ve ever seen.

JD: ! I’ll tell ye one thing about the game, you meet great people, they become great friends, no matter what county they’re from.