Ranger Hayes on a mission
Indeed when they claimed the county Junior football title in 2003 by beating Cill na Martra, it’s hard to believe the then 17-year-old dictated games with ease. Man of the Match in that final, word of his prowess spread fast.
“You know what he’s going to do and when he’s going to do it but you still can’t stop him doing it,” whined a Newcestown opponent once after they had come off second best in a minor championship game against Ross, referring to Hayes’ trademark shuffle-come-shake .
Nearly 10 years have passed, but he’s still very much the man the Rosscarbery club look to in times of need. A year ago, he had an off night in the SFC semi-final against Castlehaven and while they’ve matured into a real force since they were elevated to senior in 2006, that game sticks out as their lowest point since winning the Premier IFC in 2005. It also highlighted something else too — their form is directly correlated to Hayes’s.
That game was an anomaly, claimed Haven manager James McCarthy in these pages yesterday, but it’s a night Hayes doesn’t even want to think about. 2-12 to 0-5 the final score. Ross had been bullied out of it.
“I suppose when last year went the way it did, the one thing you’d say to yourself is you’d love to get back there and have another go at it as quickly as possible and that’s exactly the way it’s turned out,” acknowledged Hayes.
“They got the better of us all over the pitch last year and they’ll be expecting to go out and do the same but it’s up to us to up our performance. We know we can do better but it’s about going out and doing the job on the night.
“That loss is only in the back of your head more than anything because you have to treat every game on its merits, so we’re not thinking about it as such really,” he reasoned.
“It was just a game. It went the way it did. I’ve been involved in teams who’ve taken bad beatings but the only thing you can do is dust yourself down, get back into it and hope you get a chance to make up for something like that, and tonight is a new game. We’ll go into it focusing on just this game now.”
For Ross, it’s been another long season. Mid-October and they’ve played three championship games since early May. Win tonight and it’ll be three games in successive weekends for them (including last Saturday’s win over Bishopstown). A long slog, but an enjoyable one, nonetheless.
“It’s tough going during the summer all right.
“We’d train three times a week at home so there’s a lot of travelling up and down. The trip down west usually would have been Tuesday, Friday and Sunday. Your typical Tuesday is leaving work at five or quarter past, five of us meeting at the Bull McCabe’s at quarter to six or six. It takes an hour to get down.
“We’d train at seven or quarter past. We prefer to train earlier because that gives us a bit of time on the other side so you’re not coming back up very late. You’re back up for 10 o’clock and you’ve a bit of time to chill out.
“But it’s come to the winter now and we’ve a few lads back in college in Limerick so we’re training in Cork during the week which is a big help. The Ross lads have to do a bit of travelling instead. We’ve been lucky to get the use of Cloughduv, which takes the stress out of driving back home.
“The club have been good in that regard to organise that for us. But I’ve always said ‘no one is holding a gun to your head, you do this because you want to do it and these are the things that you want to and have to sacrifice if you’re going to be successful’.”
Ross have made some modifications to their side this season, the most radical of those being the redeployment of John O’Rourke from attack into defence. But is Hayes now under more pressure to score?
“I think we’ve got a good balance throughout the field and we’ve good forwards but when you’re the free-taker there’s always a burden on you to get the scores.
“I don’t go out consciously thinking ‘I must get so many points today’ because then you start taking wrong options. You just have to go out and give it everything and it doesn’t really matter who gets the scores. Different guys can pop up on a different day and if someone is marking me, well it’s up to someone else to step up and get the scores because one guy can always be stopped.”
Ask any footballer west of Innishannon what medals he cherishes most and if he’s lucky enough to have one, he’ll tell you it’s a West Cork title. Hayes is no different and he recalls an U16 final they won out in Leap in his first year on the age. Hardly coincidental that it was won against the Haven.
“All the way up we had good games against Castlehaven,” he recalled. “I remember playing U12, U14 and we would have done all right against them but there’s a good local rivalry between all the West Cork teams now and that rivalry goes back to underage. The teams are very close together and there were times when Castlehaven were strong and better than us but then there were times when we were strong and better than them too.
“I remember beating them in a West Cork final out in Leap at U16 one year. That game stands out.”
And with that he interrupts himself. Castlehaven can’t be given the faintest sniff of ammunition.
