There’s no room for sulkers in battle for Dr Crokes jersey, says O’Callaghan

Colm Cooper continues to be one of the first players to arrive at Lewis Road for a Crokes training session. Half-an-hour before Pat O’Shea gathers his charges for a warm-up, Cooper and Tony Brosnan are out on the field kicking points. However deep his frustrations at being dropped from the starting team, the 35-year-old has kept his feelings under wraps. As ever, he’s allowing his football do the talking.

Crokes selector, Niall O’Callaghan, says it was “an incredibly tough decision” not to restore Cooper to the starting team for their Kerry quarter-final against Legion, on the last weekend of September. With Cooper having been absent for their third-round victory over An Ghaeltacht, because of a bug, Tony Brosnan filled in and finished with 1-13 beside his name.

Of the 3-28 Crokes put past An Ghaeltacht, at Fitzgerald Stadium, the starting front-six accounted for 3-24. That sextet, of Looney, O’Shea, Burns, Shaw, O’Leary and Brosnan, have remained in place for their subsequent five outings. Cooper, meanwhile, has seen 115 minutes of game-time during this period, coming off the bench no earlier than half-time and no later than the 42nd minute.

O’Callaghan describes their team selection meetings as feisty affairs and says Cooper isn’t making their job any easier, such has been his training ground form.

“I’ve seen Colm Cooper in a Kerry dressing-room for 14 years. I’ve seen Colm Cooper in a Crokes dressing-room for a similar period of time. When Colm opens his mouth, the hair stands on the back of your neck. He is a proud man. He loves Crokes. It was an incredibly tough decision for all of us,” says O’Callaghan.

The response management got from the five-time All-Ireland medal winner, and eight-time All-Star, to his new bench role, is exactly what they expected.

“Colm could have — and he would have been right to — come along and give us loads of up-the-banks, but he didn’t. He’s around encouraging the young lads, showing up to training early.

“He’s asking the questions, big time. Through his performances at training, he’s asking us, ‘why aren’t I starting’?

“From what I have seen of him over his career, Colm handles his business very well. Of course, you are going to be disappointed. You are an automatic starter with the Crokes for 18 or 19 years to, all of a sudden, you are coming off the bench.

“That’s not an easy thing for him. But he’s a great leader and all he wants to do is see the Crokes win. It is great for us, because we can turn around to the young fellas and say, ‘that’s how you react’.”

Sitting alongside Cooper in the stand on matchdays are Jordan Kiely, Michael Potts, and Mark O’Shea, three players who would walk onto any club team in the country, so said Barr’s manager, Ray Keane, after their Munster semi-final defeat at the hands of the Kerry champions. To a man, they’ve each followed Cooper’s lead.

“In the three years I’ve been with Pat [O’Shea], we’ve never had problems with a single fella with regard to their unhappiness at not getting a game,” O’Callaghan continues. “They have all bought into the team ethos. If a fella did ever come with that attitude to us, I think he’d be stopped by the players, before he ever got as far as management.”

Daithí Casey, moved from the half-forward line to midfield for the current campaign, is thankful not to be involved in that fierce scrap for a jersey numbered 10 through 15. Cooper, he adds, isn’t the first player in black-and-amber to adopt such a selfless attitude.

“It is either everyone tune in, everyone sing off the same hymn sheet and we win, or fellas be sulking, giving out, not all-in and we lose,” insists Casey.

“I remember coming up to the 2017 All-Ireland club final, Jason Lyne (an unused sub for that campaign) was marking me every Tuesday and Thursday. That was as tough as any fella I marked throughout the All-Ireland series. I owe Jason a lot for that, that he was so driven to bate into me every Tuesday and Thursday for the betterment of the team and club.”

This is a point picked up on by corner-back and captain, John Payne. Given the embarrassment of riches in the Crokes attack, the spotlight rarely falls on those operating further back the field.

“It’s all about the forwards and that’s fine,” quips the postman. “But all these forwards have to be getting their match-sharpness from somewhere. Don’t be forgetting us.

“I’d be looking over my shoulder as much as any forward. It’s similarly competitive back here, with David Naughton, Brian Fitzgerald, and Jason Lyne trying to get in.

“If you are playing well, you are on the team. Well, if you are playing well, you are off the team, too; just look at Jordy, Gooch and the boys. It is tough to get in.”