Páidí all the chatter as on-field matters take a back seat

Days in Ruislip are about so much more than goals and points and wins and losses.

For the diaspora that live and work in this city of eight million people, a trip to the venue offers a rare opportunity to congregate as a community and shoot the breeze about events in London and those back home.

One man dominated the conversation yesterday and, that being Páidí Ó Sé, most were offered with a chuckle. Everyone had a story about the man from Ventry and Dr Crokes manager Noel O’Leary was no different.

“We played Páidí there years ago, in ’92, when we played UCC in a challenge and Páidí was involved with them,” said O’Leary as a smile framed his face.

“He had always this thing that we were rats. Rats he used to call the Crokes team.

“We played them up in Ballincollig one Sunday evening. UCC had Maurice Fitzgerald at the time and Páidí says ‘lads, whatever ye do ye have to watch these fellas because they are like rats – they will eat you alive’.”

Ó Sé was a pretty good judge of football, too, and those words spat out before a routine challenge match two decades ago were as relevant as ever yesterday given the ruthless manner in which the Kerry side completed this job.

Christmas was calling and with it the promise of a two-week hiatus from training. Not the ideal carrot to have dangling in front of a team before games such as these but they stayed focus and did what they had to.

“We came over with a job to do,” said O’Leary, who confirmed Eoin Brosnan will be fit for the semi-final. “We got the three goals in the first-half. We were outstanding in the first-half. We knew in the second-half that the boys were going to come at us for a while. We have good footballers and we knuckled down to it. It was a scrappy enough second-half but we got through it well.”

And so the curtain came down, finally, on a run of football that was stitched through all 12 months on the calendar but the stakes will raise considerably higher when they re-emerge for action in two months’ time.

Ballymun Kickhams await in a semi-final that would stand out in most years but which will have to share equal billing with the meeting of Crossmaglen Rangers and St Brigid’s. O’Leary said: “Everyone is talking about club football at the moment, which is great. No-one is talking about county football at all. Hopefully we will be in the final come March but it will be a tough semi-final.”