Maurice Fitzgerald v Meath: When one of the great careers ended on a low in 2001
“Put in that Kerry would have won had Maurice Fitz started and I wasn’t suspended,” chuckles Tomás Ó Sé.
Twenty-three years should be a safe enough remove from one of Kerry’s most dispiriting days in Croke Park yet even at that Ó Sé knows it’s only gallows humour.
Meath’s 15-point hosing of Kerry in that All-Ireland semi-final has been well documented but it also marked Maurice Fitzgerald’s last day in a Kerry jersey.
A talent as rare and wonderful as the then 32-year-old was, it was a downright shame his career ended in such ignominy. Its beginning was hardly salubrious either but after 14 senior seasons it was over.
Fitzgerald was brought on just seconds before John McDermott’s goal prior to half-time, his ninth appearance as a substitute over the 2001 and 2000 championships. Two of those cameos were crucial – two buzzer-beating equalisers, the free and famous sideline kick against Armagh in 2000 and Dublin a year later. The consensus was he grew tired of being a support act. The truth was more nuanced than that.
“Maurice never retired,” says Dara Ó Cinnéide. “We actually expected him to come back in ’02. We all held out hope he would appear and when we lost the All-Ireland final to Armagh it was, ‘Aw, what if we had Maurice?’ “When you saw how majestic he was with South Kerry for a couple of years subsequently winning Bishop Moynihans. As Kerry reached six All-Ireland finals in a row, his absence wasn’t as keenly felt but in ’02 we were all privately wishing he’d come back.”
Ó Cinnéide shared the field but in opposing colours to Fitzgerald the day his career changed irrevocably. August 21, 1999. An Ghaeltacht and South Kerry’s county senior championship quarter-final replay. Fitzgerald was taking a sideline kick in front of the stand when he fractured his leg in the action of doing so. He couldn’t train a pre-season properly again and it paved the way for Ó Cinnéide to become Kerry’s primary freetaker.
“He seemed to strike the ground as he took it, a freak injury. He missed the whole winter and the league in 2000 and at that stage I had taken over the frees. I’ll always remember the great encouragement he gave me. I remember going out the first day against Cork in championship, I scored 2-5 and Maurice coming up to me before the game saying, ‘You’re the freetaker now.’
“I couldn’t believe it because he was a hero of mine but he should also have been saying, ‘Fuck you, you’ve after taking the frees off me’. He was brilliant about it, absolutely brilliant.” The only free Fitzgerald took that season turned out to be the most important one against Armagh to draw their All-Ireland semi-final. A placed ball won by Ó Cinnéide who was incapacitated with a bloody nose in claiming it.
“I was never as happy to see Maurice trotting over, assuming the authority. It wasn’t a difficult free but it was a pressure one. Afterwards, I was angry with himself saying to myself I should want the pressure of the frees but at the time it was the right thing to do.” Fitzgerald was held in reserve for the replay as he was for the two final games against Galway. “After the first Armagh game, I have a clear picture of Maurice sitting on the train home with his leg up in ice. He was never able to do enough on the training ground to secure a place and I think they liked the fact he was offering something off the bench.
“Again, he never training consistently over winter 2000 and into 2001. It all stemmed from that game in Gallarus. Maurice’s last genuine, solid block winter training was 1996 into ’97 and we all saw the results of that. Every other year after was interrupted.”
Ó Cinnéide knows how he sounds, “justifying Páidí’s team selection”, but it’s his recollection. “Páidí was under fierce pressure because Maurice was adored. Maybe there was a perception that Páidí was favouring the likes of myself and Aodan MacGearailt because we were from his club but that wasn’t my sense of it at the time and it isn’t now.”
Tomás Ó Sé obviously vouches for his late uncle too – “The question will always be there but Páidí obviously had his reasons. There was no rights or wrongs to it.” The way Meath ran rings around Kerry, no personnel changes were going to work. “I got a normal ticket off a normal fella,” Ó Sé remembers after being banned for a red card picked up in the quarter-final replay win over Dublin. “I didn’t travel with the squad on the day. I was watching down and after 15 minutes saying, ‘We’re in serious trouble here’. I’ve never seen a collapse like it.
“I’ve never heard Maurice talking about it but I presume he wasn’t happy that he wasn’t starting. I know from talking to players of my time and current ones that it feels different when you’re a sub because you feel like you should be playing.
“It’s not that you want Kerry to lose but if Kerry lose and you’re a sub who think you should be playing there’s anger and frustration and it’s not going to sit well. And Maurice was phenomenal.”
Neither Ó Sé nor Ó Cinnéide speak to the rumours that Kerry were over-trained in 2001. All the latter knows is they were dreadful. “I remember in the first half standing in front of (Trevor) Giles trying to put him off taking a free out of the hands and he kicked a ball right by my ear. He was a player at the top of his game. I thought I had put him off with my hands up but he had floated it into Ollie Murphy beautifully and my reaction was ‘fuck’s sake, they’re at a different level to us’. Everything they did was coming off and everything we did turned to shit.”
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