Dermot Earley admits Kildare overtraining resulted in 'niggly injuries' ahead of 1998 All-Ireland final
Dermot Earley leads Kildare onto the pitch for their 2010 All-Ireland qualifier against Antrim hours after his father's funeral.
Dermot Earley has revisited the debate that Mick O’Dwyer trained Kildare too hard ahead of the 1998 All-Ireland final defeat to Galway.
While full of praise for the Kerry legend, Earley discusses the point in his Laochra Gael programme to be televised on TG4 this Thursday.
An All-Star that year and a goalscorer in the first half of the final, Earley acknowledges the injuries which some players carried into the final may have been due to their tough preparation.
“We did quite a lot of hard training for that two-week period," he said of the build-up after beating Kerry in the semi-final. "I know Willie McCreery, he trains racehorses for a living now, often talked about how Micko should have possibly trained us for that month in that we were at peak fitness against Kerry, we weren’t going to get any fitter. We should have just maintained our fitness. A couple of our key players picked up niggly injuries.”
Earley commends O’Dwyer for his half-time talk in the 2000 Leinster final replay against Dublin which saw Kildare overturn a six-point deficit at the interval to win by five. “I think one of the things Micko was very good at was calming the situation. Micko would have said, ‘We’re not playing well. These are the things we’re not doing good. This is what I want you to do and now just go out and do it.’”
Earley also touches on the death of his father, Roscommon giant Dermot Senior, who passed away at the age of 62 in June 2010 following a diagnosis of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. “It was a real difficult time. It was just a shock ... for this to happen to a man so big, so physically strong, at the top of his game.
“He was always the person who looked after you and who looked out for you, gave you that bit of advice when you needed it. To lose that side of him… he became very quiet and within himself… it was tough to watch. We ended up having a vigil with him for three days and he passed away then on a Wednesday at 12 o’clock during the day surrounded by all of us.”
After speaking with his mother Mary, Earley lined out for Kildare in a qualifier victory over Antrim in Newbridge hours after his father’s state funeral as a former Defence Forces chief of staff. “I thought the best way I could go out and honour him was to go out and play and play the best that I could that day. Running out onto the pitch in St Conleth’s Park, the reception the Kildare team got was huge. Instead of doing a minute’s silence, they did a minute’s applause and we all got together and lined up and I could feel the support of all the players around me and Kieran (McGeeney, then manager) stood in and we all stood together in a line.”
McGeeney pays tribute to the strength of Earley that evening - “If you see that picture (of the panel standing together), it looks like Dermot is holding the team up rather than the other way around.”
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