JJ a pillar of strength
This one is rather more apt for the week that was in it, not least because no proper tribute to the striped super-heroes of recent years can omit a tip of the hat to the men in blue and gold who drove them to such gaiscí.
The second half of the 2009 decider, Tipp playing into the Davin End and Eoin Kelly drifting out the field shadowed by JJ Delaney. What transpires could be a scene from a coursing meeting. Kelly feints one way; Delaney reads it, interposes his body and forces him to turn. Kelly dodges the other way; Delaney is there again, jousting with his stick. They’re at this for what seems like five minutes when Kelly somehow finds an inch or two, contorts his body, wraps his hurley around his shoulder and splits the uprights for a score of purest spun gold.
Did Kelly, Tipperary’s finest player since Nicky English and arguably an even greater servant to his county, ever land a better point? Possibly not. Was he ever forced to land a better point? Most certainly not. Beating Delaney usually entailed pulling white fire from the skies. Only the occasional passing deity like Kelly managed it. If the Cody era will end only when Brian Cody is no longer Kilkenny manager, the passing of Delaney and Tommy Walsh represents the end of, well, whatever the span of time before an era is. Fourteen seasons in the intercounty arena and eight All Ireland medals on the field of play: they’re not going to be making ‘em like the Johnstown man from now on.
(Trivia question for the family Christmas quiz or the pub tonight. Who was the only other player to whom Cody accorded an instant upgrade from minor to senior? Not Walsh, not Richie Power, not Richie Hogan. It was Cha Fitzpatrick.)
Comparisons and contrasts with Tommy Walsh, far from being invidious, are natural and fitting seeing as the pair for so long inhabited the same exalted plane of immortality before our eyes. Where Walsh was the people’s defender Delaney was the connoisseur’s defender. Where Walsh was a flamethrower Delaney was a stiletto, the subtlest of knives.
If they’re ever to return in musical form Walsh will be Mr Four to the Floor, an instantly engaging three-minute pop single, and Delaney the album that grows on the listener over time, revealing a new layer on each playing. Walsh was a front-foot, WUSIWUG kind of guy; what you saw was what you got and there was absolutely no mystery attached. Delaney played off the back foot and was an iceberg; nine tenths of what he did you didn’t see and could only guess at.
If he wasn’t the fastest and clearance was nothing out of the ordinary, none of that mattered. His calmness was supreme, his powers of anticipation nigh on supernatural, his veins made of ice. For all that he was a pillar under the dropping ball on the half-back line, with his armoury of flicks and blocks and hooks he was machine-tooled for the role of cerebral full-back, that breed for whom the smallest touches are the most important ones.
Remember the instinctive one-handed backhanded clearance off the line before half-time against Limerick in the All Ireland semi-final?
Not that he found the transition handy. Make a mistake at wing-back, where one had the safety valve of filling in behind the centre-back, and the most penal tax was rarely anything more than the concession of a point. Playing full-back, on the other hand, he once described as ‘merciless’: one slip and bang. There may have been less running but there was more sprinting from a standing start – the short, sharp stuff – and the fad of late for two-man full-forward lines required more space to be covered. That said, Delaney was fortunate to have Paul Murphy, Kilkenny’s most important discovery since the four in a row, alongside to do much of his running for him, while Jackie Tyrrell remained the doorman with the monkey suit and the brusque way with uninvited guests.
That Delaney got plenty of it from Seamus Callanan in September’s drawn match had a good deal to do with the wealth of ball coming their way from out the field. Such are the trials in the life of a full-back; the poor chap at the mercy of the contest’s ebb and flow. Once the tap stopped dripping in the replay he was always going to be more secure.
Interviewed recently about that hook on Callanan — admittedly not a player with the tidiest of swings, though critically Delaney didn’t make the mistake of committing too early – he was at pains to point out his intervention was only part of it, that when the sliotar ran loose Callanan had a second bite at the cherry and it was Pádraig Walsh who rode to the rescue.
“Pádraig didn’t get the credit he deserved for it. He tracked back 40 yards from wing-back to challenge. I think it epitomised our spirit. One in, all in. If Pádraig hadn’t got the hook, nobody would be talking about my hook.” Aw shucks, folks.
Kilkenny will have someone wearing the number three jersey next summer. But it won’t be JJ. It never will be again.
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