Paudie O'Brien on missing out on medals: ‘There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about it’
Paudie O'Brien of Limerick after the 2014 All-Ireland quarter-final defeat. Picture: INPHO/Cathal Noonan
T’S October 2016 and John Kiely calls. The new Limerick manager is delivering bad news to Paudie O’Brien. At 26 years of age, the defender is being let go.
For the first half of the 2010s, O’Brien formed a formidable half-back triumvirate with Wayne McNamara and Gavin O’Mahony. At the age of 30, McNamara retired that same month, while O’Mahony hung in for another year to step away at the same age. Both were able to end it on their own terms.
“John just didn’t see me in his plans,” O’Brien recalls frankly. “You could go away and retire and with a bit of a swansong but that’s not me. The minute John rang and said that, my first goal was to try and get back on the panel because I felt I was good enough to be on the panel. I would never have denied that either.
“He was very straight and I was very straight and it was a very thorough conversation but we went our separate ways and I hold no grudges against him. He has done nothing short of a remarkable job with them.
“He’s a very likeable guy, I had him as a selector in 2013 and I’m on the coaching side of things now with the U20s so I know how difficult these decisions are. I don’t have to agree with it and I didn’t but I accepted it. I had my path, I played from 2009 and we had plenty of chances so I can’t complain.”
But to think that there were just 22 months between that talk with Kiely and Limerick ending 45 years of All-Ireland pain? Well, that’s the thing. O’Brien thinks about it constantly.
“It’s funny, there’s isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about it. I’d be a liar saying otherwise. I read the Ronan O’Gara article recently about that All Blacks game and it does resonate.
“Nickie Quaid, we played together since 13 years of age, travelled together through our teenage years and you become very close to these fellas. He’s just an example of a fella who has got over the line and he’s delighted to have done so, but then you have this thing in the back of your head ‘I should have been with him’ and ‘why wasn’t I?’
“You meet family members and for me the hardest part of it was them there at the game and thinking their son or brother could have been down there on the field celebrating it. At the end of the day, I had to accept it and I have accepted it.
"I always going back to the point that I had my chances and if you don’t take them then you have to live with the consequences. It’s that simple for me.”
On the line against Cork today as a selector with the U20s, Kilmallock man O’Brien really does appreciate how difficult it would have been for Kiely to axe players.
“Picking U20 panels really is a horrible time because it’s still a bit raw and fresh for me. I know what it’s like to be on teams constantly and knowing you’re still going to be picked even though the team isn’t going well, but I also know what it’s like not to make them.
“I’ve a good job as an engineer with Edwards Lifesciences, I'm just after building a house, I’ve a healthy family, a child on the way, I played for Limerick for a number of years and I’m still playing and I’m coaching now. I’ve little to be giving out about, really.”
And it does give O’Brien the utmost pleasure watching this fine Limerick team traverse from the first round of the Munster SHC to this point. His fellow countymen but a different breed.
“They’re playing with smiles on their faces and showing that hurling is to be enjoyed and maybe we lost focus on that.
“Bar Kilkenny, the best team of all time, we knew we could mix it with anybody and we probably came obsessed in trying to win an All-Ireland. That kind of restricts you at times. I don’t know some of the current group as intimately as I would others but I get this sense that they’re loving what they’re doing and they have this sense of freedom.
“I’m not saying for one second that they don’t want to win but I don’t think they think about the result as much as I used to do. They’re just so focused on following the process and giving it everything and usually the result does follow.
“And when they’re beaten they’re very likeable too as in they just take it on the chin. They could have gone on about the 65 at the end against Kilkenny last year, but to be fair to John and them all you heard about afterwards was, ‘We gave them an eight-point lead’.”
How delighted O’Brien is to see his club-mate Graeme Mulcahy as well as Quaid transcend these generations of Limerick hurlers.
“We had Shaughs (Andrew O’Shaughnessy) for a good few years and we think so much of him. And now we have Graeme. His speed and striking are his prevalent attributes but his longevity is impressive especially for a forward. He’s still kept his place even when things were going bad. He kept his head down.
"The semi-final didn’t go right for him but he’d obviously be on my team every day of the week.
“He’s a senior engineer for Arup and he’s a very high achiever off the field in a busy job where they expect a lot from him. He wouldn’t be able to play the ‘I’m a hurler’ card a whole lot to get off work. He drives up and down from Cork.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
