Kieran Shannon: It's hard to think of a more influential or admirable footballer than Conor Glass

Glass and Stephen O'Brien of Kerry after the game in Austin Stacks Park.

To this day we still don’t know if Kevin McManamon meant that goal against Kerry in the 2013 All Ireland semi-final; as candid as he has been on a range of matters, especially his struggles with anxiety and confidence in the early part of his career, he’s tended to deflect with a smile any question of whether he was going for a point or the crossbar or really meant to lob Brendan Kealy when he broke Kerry’s hearts that time, as in the second time he did so in the space of just 24 months.

Last Sunday in Celtic Park there was a goal of a similar nature if not quite the magnitude but Conor Glass spared us any mystery or bluster whether his goal that dipped below Niall Morgan’s crossbar last was intentional or not. “An absolute fluke,” he’d unashamedly declare to TG4’s Mícheál Ó Domhnaill and the nation in a post-match interview. The wind or sheer luck more than any ingenuity on his part caused the ball to arc perfectly into the top corner of the Tyrone net.

It’s hard to think of a more influential or admirable footballer outside of Dublin and Fossa in this decade to date.

Considering a series of results at the weekend, as good a place to start is a game from four years ago – just before Covid and just before Glass’s return.

In March 2020, Cork and Derry were both in Division Three. We could have used the word ‘mired’ in that previous sentence, except one of those sides had no intention of remaining in it any longer than was necessary and that side was Cork.

Buoyed by appearing in the Super 8s and the county’s U20 All Ireland win the previous summer, Ronan McCarthy’s team blitzed teams during that league, including Louth for five goals, and Derry for three, before Derry got a couple of consolation goals in garbage time to make it a respectable but false two-point loss.

Nine of Derry’s starting 15 that day in Páirc Uí Chaoimh started against Kerry in the All Ireland semi-final last July. Odhran Lynch was in goals. Chrissy McKaigue, Brendan Rogers and Padraig McGrogan were in the backs; Ciarán McFaul and Paul Cassidy, before the return of Glass and the redeployment of Rogers, constituted the midfield. Niall Loughlin, Shane McGuigan and Niall Toner were all upfront, as was Benny Heron who came on against Kerry to make it 10 survivors from the game below in Cork.

Few teams last summer would have had so many starters from a league game three years earlier, let alone one that failed to escape Division Three in that 2020 campaign; an opening day draw to Leitrim meant caused them to lose out on that other promotion spot to Down on the head-to-head.

The core of that team are now back-to-back Ulster champions and top of Division One, having won three consecutive promotions.

Much of that radical improvement has to be attributed to the outstanding coaching of Rory Gallagher, as unfashionable a statement as that may now be; back in 2020 they were only in year one of his tenure. But they have also had the benefit of another remarkable example of transformational leadership in the form of a player with the return of Glass.

Ciarán Daly of Tyrone surrounded by Padraig McGrogan and Conor Glass.

In 2016 the Wall Street Journal’s Sam Walker wrote The Captain Class: The Hidden Force Behind the World’s Greatest Teams. After studying 16 sides that dominated their sport to a previously unprecedented level, he found the key factor wasn’t inspired or tactically-astute management or financial resources or even world-leading playing talent. “The crucial ingredient in a team that achieves and sustains historic greatness,” he’d conclude, “is the character of the player who leads it.” He went further. 

The span of these historically dominant periods invariably corresponded in some way to the arrival and departure of one particular player, “and,” he adds, “with an eerie regularity that person was, or would eventually become, the captain.” That same year this column highlighted how Stephen Cluxton underlined the validity of Walker’s thesis, one that has even more credence for how Dublin would resume winning last season upon his return.

Glass is another spectacular example, his arrival coinciding with an unprecedented level of success for his club and an extraordinary upswing in the fortunes of his county.

He returned from the AFL in October 2020. Within a week he was training for Derry. Since then, according to Cahair O’Kane of the Irish News, he has missed just three games for either club or county in league or championship. He plays because when he plays his team win and win and win.

He is an immaculate footballer but Derry know it is what he brings off the field as much as on it that has elevated them to legitimate contenders. Shortly after he returned from the AFL after a mixed career with Hawthorne, he gave an interview to Kevin O’Brien of The42 in which he spoke about the Melbourne club had taught him that the qualities the likes of the Captain Class and Legacy endorsed mattered on grass, not just on paper.

“Just the standards around training,” he’d say. “The extras before and after training – the extra touch sessions. Just the one percenters that you can get to get ahead of other counties, just doing that extra touch and having that ball in your hands more than anyone else.” 

In that same interview he also spoke about winning Ulsters and more. Irelands, “We should be pushing for All-Irelands and getting back to where we were in ’93.” At the time Derry were in Division Three and hadn’t won an Ulster in 23 years.

But then again the Glen had yet to win a county. Now they’ve won three on the trot, back-to-back Ulsters and the All Ireland itself.

More than a quarter of a century ago now, Mickey Harte identified Cormac McAnallen was of the necessary captain class, an appointment that led to an unprecedented level of success for Tyrone football.

It is why he was keen for Glass to pitch right away into the Derry cause and wait until the two-week league break for him to have his well-earned holiday that he mentioned to Ó Domhnaill.

He is that leader. He has that class. With him they can go all the way.