‘You train hard enough and make enough sacrifices to enjoy these occasions’

He may not be one for the limelight or court publicity but Graham Canty is a guy comfortable in his own skin

Graham Canty is Cork’s Johnny Tightlips. You know, the ultra-loyal Mafia henchman in The Simpsons.

Lying shot, a fellow gangster asks Johnny where he’s been hit: “I’m saying nothing”.

“But what will I tell the doctor?” asks his friend.

“Tell him to suck a lemon.”

Put a dictaphone in front of the Cork captain and he usually clams up.

Once, a journalist innocently asked about how family life was treating him and he was told it wasn’t a subject the Bantry man was interested in talking about.

In an interview with a local newspaper earlier this year, Canty discussed his aversion to social media. “I just don’t see the point in telling people what I am doing day to day or week to week. I don’t think ‘Graham Canty drinking a cup of tea’ is going to make much difference to peoples’ lives. I am a private person. An ordinary person. It just doesn’t appeal to me.”

Hard to argue with that and yet the Graham Canty that spoke to the press in Rochestown Park Hotel last Monday was more open than usual. A guy comfortable in his own skin.

Not surprisingly, he wasn’t aware the Galway game seven days ago marked his 60th SFC appearance for Cork until a work colleague informed him before the game.

He spoke honestly about the Munster final defeat to Kerry last month, admitting it wasn’t tactics that foiled Cork but their own standard of play.

“We tried to rectify it and we did our best in the second half but came up short. That’s the way it is, that’s sport. You’re not going to win every time.”

Quite the philosophical approach but how does that tally with Canty as he tries to squeeze more out of an inter-county career in its autumn?

“You take one game at a time — that’s the way I’ve always approached it whether it be with my club or games with the county.

“You prepare for each as well as you can and you try and perform. It’s serving me alright so far so I’m not going to change.”

Several in the Cork camp won’t have experienced anything like what faces them this evening, the sea of blue on Hill 16 and around the Croke Park stadium.

Good job Canty will be on hand to assure them of what lies ahead. He himself had someone watching his back when he was starting out.

“I can remember playing one of my first Munster finals, we were playing Kerry below in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

“I can remember Kevin O’Dwyer coming up to me and saying, ‘Look, there’ll be close to 40,000 here. Just be ready from an entertaining point of view, a noise point of view’.

“But I always, always remember him saying as well, ‘Enjoy it’, because that’s what you train for.

“A certain element you can prepare for but the rest of it you just have to accept it. Once you’re prepared for it then you accept it and move on.”

Considered such an austere individual, it’s intriguing to hear Canty place so much store in taking pleasure from playing Championship football. But he says: “You train hard enough and make enough sacrifices to enjoy these occasions, I think.”

He’ll try to use the crowd to his advantage but knows, like a visiting Ryder Cup team, silence means success: “It’s probably something to look for”.

Nerves don’t come into it for Canty. If it’s “a problem you shouldn’t be there. You make the nerves work for you. What I do is bring them in, they can heighten your sense of alertness as well. You don’t want to bring them in and let them cripple you but that’s mental preparation. I won’t bore you with any of that. Every player does that. You go through your mental rehearsal. Nerves are a part of that. If you’re not nervous there’s something wrong with you. Make the nerves work for you.”

Cork, he says, will have travelled to Dublin last night with confidence. Similarities, as premature as they might be, have been drawn between their 2010 run to All-Ireland success and this season where they have been putting in strong second halves.

“We’ve a new team compared to what we were in 2010,” points out Canty before adding, “I think we’ve kept some of the good traits and characteristics: we’ve good belief, we won’t throw in the towel and we’ll keep going until the bitter end. If it’s good enough it is and if you’re good enough to create your own luck it’ll happen.”