The green and gold standard
THREE weeks ago, Colm Cooper stood in the stillness of Fitzgerald Stadium and had an epiphany. Taking a brief rest from the rigours of training, it dawned on him. This is me, he thought. This is where I am most content. This is where I am among my best friends. Across Lewis Road are the rest of my close buddies. This is what I am.
That realisation wasn’t always obvious. It wasn’t so much that football was a chore as much as he didn’t fully appreciate how much he loved the game. It’s been as good to him as he has to it.
“I was thinking I’m at my happiest when I’m playing football. That hasn’t diminished. Once I’m on the field, I’m a happy person, even if things aren’t going so well or things are tough. It gives me a great release and if things aren’t great in other aspects of your life you can release all that negative energy on the field. That’s where it’s been a major help to me.”
It’s pulled him through dark times when his father Mike passed away in 2006. Cooper’s profile ensured he received more tea and sympathy than most grieving sons. He finished the year with an All-Ireland medal, but without his dad.
“He died in April leading into the Championship season and it hits you, it does rock you. You keep yourself going for a while. It can perhaps go on for a year or two before it flushes out of the system completely. I don’t think your life is on hold, but it does take a bit out of you.
“I probably wasn’t myself for a little bit after that. You’re thinking you’re just living your everyday life but I wasn’t at the pitch of where I always was, maybe my demeanour or whatever it might be. But sure that’s normal.”
A year previously, his buddy Kieran Cahillane drowned just hours before he lined out against Mayo in an All-Ireland quarter-final. “We couldn’t understand a 19-year-old dying like that. I think time helps everything, you move on from things. Maybe because of things like that your friends and family become that little bit tighter.”
Those moments were intensely private ones but we all heard about them. Cooper, by that stage, was box office. The attention that Páidi Ó Sé did his damnedest to keep away from him in his teenage years now rests easily on his shoulders.
“I wasn’t under the spotlight so much but there was a lot of expectation on me all the time. I was in the media from a very early age. It becomes part of you. You understand it more and you can understand it.”
From a will-o’-the-wisp whiz kid to wandering wizard, we’ve watched Cooper grow up. He doesn’t look 30 — and probably won’t for some time yet — but he has the learning of those years.
“I’ve become a better balanced person maybe than what I was five or six years ago. I’m probably more open-minded about things. I was a bit stubborn at times. No doubt about it, I still make as many mistakes if not more than anyone but that doesn’t overly concern me. I’ve gone through lots of things in football and in life, things you wish you could turn the clock back on but you can’t. All you can do is learn and grow up from them. I’m happy where I am at the moment, yeah. Craving a little bit more success if possible before that day comes when it finishes up.”
FOUR times he’s had to turn down All Star trips. Four times he’s missed out. San Diego, Dubai, Kuala Lumpur and New York last year. All because of the club. All because Dr Crokes have been that good. The longer evenings in Killarney represent the advent of an end to most. But not Cooper. They are but a reminder of what’s ahead of him.
Last year, the club played 13 of the 15 weeks leading into Christmas. If they want to retain their bounty of trophies it’s likely they will have to go through a similar run this winter.
He’d love to pop over to Liverpool and take in a game in Anfield here and there but he can’t. “It’s very difficult even getting a free weekend later in the year but that’s a good complaint because it shows the club are going well and are challenging for honours. What we went through last year doesn’t give you much time to do a lot of things but that’s part of being a footballer particularly if you’re craving success.
“If things go right you’re not going to have much time, but you’re happy to make that sacrifice. Sacrifices means winning medals and that’s what it’s all about.”
He points to the inter-county schedule as the reason for the stacked club schedule at the end of the year. He sees it from both sides: the county manager who doesn’t want his players risking injury two weeks out from a Championship game and the club who simply wish to have their county guys available to them.
“The bigger and wider issue for me is the club player who is training during the year, who should be playing the best part of his football where possible in the summertime and they can’t plan for much.
“In Kerry, the (club) championship structure really depends on the inter-county team. Players find it hard to plan holidays and other things. They might only play a Championship game and one or two league games during the summer and that’s why so many of them are going to America. We had two or three guys go over there and what can you say to them?”
He’s had to take his breaks too and more often than not they have come in the spring when he’s been afforded extra time off by Kerry. Dropping down a level to club is an exercise diced with danger and one the likes of Eoin Brosnan and himself have to negotiate carefully.
“You’re not doing the level of professional training as you would with the inter-county set-up and some nights you might have to take a night off. Myself and Brossie have been playing so long now that we kind of understand our bodies a bit more so if your body is crying out to take a step back then you have to and that’s fine. The club boys are okay with that.
“We’ve gone to February with Crokes the last couple of years and I’ve taken four or five weeks extra off because I need some Colm Cooper time as well and to switch off whether it’s to go away over to a Liverpool game or America for a few days. Just to get out of Dodge. I think that’s very important for the mind because if you go back into a serious set-up with no break you may be okay for two months but you could then hit a wall come May or June and that’s not the time to do that.”
Preparations between county and club can be contrasted but the structure of teams at each level aren’t as easily separated.
Crokes joint-manager Noel O’Leary last year bemoaned the drastic lengths clubs in Kerry were going to stop his team. Cooper, who in 2012 routinely started games for Crokes in the full-forward line before coming out towards the end of the first-half, wasn’t put out as much.
“What I see is whoever wins the All-Ireland, everyone reckons that system is the answer to their problems. I kind of laugh at it sometimes. But if I was on a team that was playing against really good forwards the next day you’d be saying you have to do something to try and counteract that or at least slow it down.
“We were perceived to have very good forwards so people are just trying to upset the rhythm a bit and that’s completely understandable. The enjoyment part is trying to overcome it and find solutions and ways around it.”
He’s spoken out about the direction football has taken but is in no way depressed by it. For questions, there will be answers. “I don’t have any major problem with football at the moment. I’m just saying sometimes it’s not so good on the eye. If you look at how Mayo beat Donegal, that was a massive performance. The Dubs have been very entertaining at different stages during the year.
“There’s been some fantastic football but the game has gone very, very structured and many teams set up not to lose the game rather than going to try and win it. That’s my opinion, whether it’s right or wrong.”
In an ideal world, would Cooper still be perched at corner-forward tomorrow? Would he be forced to go and forage for ball? He doesn’t look at it that way. Naturally. When Eamonn Fitzmaurice put the idea to him of playing further out the field he accepted it willingly.
He’s heard what Joe Brolly had to say about his qualities as a leader and as a centre-forward and jokes it’s just as well the Derryman isn’t picking the team. “I’d be in trouble then!” he smiles.
It’s a role he accepts he’s not used to at inter-county level but one where he can put his inside line knowledge to good use. “I’ve definitely an appreciation now of what our half-forwards and our other guys go through because there is a huge workload. I play it, I enjoy it. Are there aspects I have to improve on? Absolutely. I’ve had to change my game a bit in terms of finding areas to get on the ball.
“The small advantage I think I have is I’ve played inside for so long I know what guys inside there are looking for. More often, I know what type of runs they want, what type of ball they want.
“It’s something I’ve enjoyed and I’m just seeking to get better. I know I’m a million miles off being the finished article as a centre-forward, but I’m working on it. Anytime I’m playing well it’s been when I’m trying to get higher and higher on the graph and that’s what I’m trying to do in this position.”
When Brolly speaks of Cooper looking for easy ball, he overlooks the legitimate and stunning interception the player made on James Loughrey in second half of the Munster final only for referee Marty Duffy to penalise it.
Cooper was livid with the decision. “I’ve no problem with Marty Duffy at all. He was completely blind-sided so from his point of view... I got the ball and look it was a mistake by the referee but we make mistakes as well. The reason why I was really frustrated was Cork were coming back at us and we were under pressure at the time. Conceding another point when we didn’t need to and we had turned over the ball, that’s where the frustration came from.”
IN his Irish Examiner column the morning after Kerry’s 2011 All-Ireland defeat to Dublin, Fitzmaurice expressed his heartache for Cooper as captain. As a player, he wanted to win in 2002 for Darragh Ó Sé. “We were desperate to get him up the steps, as desperate as the Kerry lads were yesterday to give Gooch the biggest honour in our game,” he wrote. “Unfortunately life and sport does not always work like that. Gooch knows better than anyone. He has plenty of life experience and won’t dwell on the disappointment.”
The current manager knows his player well. “It was another All-Ireland that was there for Kerry and we didn’t follow through on it,” Cooper recalls. “Whether I was captain or Declan O’Sullivan or whoever was captain, I’m not into that stuff. I don’t have a big grá for individual awards or All Stars or anything like that. Celtic Crosses are what I play football for and that was an opportunity.
“You can say you deserved or didn’t deserve it or people can say they felt sorry for certain people, but Kerry lost and it was disappointing. My first All-Ireland, we lost to Armagh and I was as devastated then as I was after any All-Ireland final defeat. The Dublin one was just one we didn’t follow through on.”
Is it a defeat Kerry have ever recovered from? The second-half slump has become an unwanted calling card of theirs. “If there’s evidence it’s happened a couple of times it becomes more of a focal point for people to talk about. If it’s happening there might have been an issue. If you make mistakes you’re going to be punished and we made mistakes and were punished.
“Yeah, it’s happened a few times so maybe we didn’t learn too much from it. You just address it as it comes along. That day, we were up, they came back, we went ahead again and we eventually lost the game. They are things that back five or six years ago would never have happened.”
Their second-half performance over Cavan in the quarter-final was the latest in a line of fade-outs after the break — “we kind of accepted to play the game on their terms.”
As many draw parallels between 2009 and now and how Kerry are coming in under the radar, he looks at the differences. “If you go through the 2009 squad how many are still there? Maybe only half of the squad of 30, even if that. That’s a huge changeover in terms of experience, quality and guys who have won All-Irelands.
“It’s probably unfair expecting from 15 lads who have never won an All-Ireland and sometimes that’s hard for guys to manage. The other side is there’s a mixed group and there’s a good decent blend about it. But patience isn’t something we’re great at. We’re craving and demanding success all of the time.”
Tomorrow Cooper will jog out for his 76th Championship appearance, his 32nd in Croke Park. The bunting mightn’t exactly be flying in Kerry but he knows what they want. Like his beloved Liverpool, he recognises transition doesn’t change expectation.
“This is my 12th Championship season and from the first day I went into training I picked up on the responsibility of wearing the Kerry jersey, the understanding of what it represents, the people you’re representing and the history and tradition. That brings its own pressure and the fact Kerry have been so successful traditionally brings it own little pressure but I’ve learned to deal with it.
“It’s always going to be there and maybe sometimes for younger guys coming in it’s difficult initially to pick up and they can become fixated on it. But it becomes part of the norm after a while. You’re representing a very special county and a very successful county and every day you start of a Championship season you’re looking towards September.”
Tomorrow is September, but tomorrow is only a step. Same as it was for Cooper as a boy. Same for Cooper as a man.
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