'What would you do without it?': Championship success means the same, even in western Australia
PERTH PRIDE: Rob Ó Sé (left) after Western Australia SFC success with St Finbarr's, alongside centre back Mattie McKenna (Cavan).
THEY were the next dreamers. The summer of 2014: Kerry’s latest golden generation had not yet come of age. The future was still unwritten. What mattered then was school and county and the small universe of Gaelic football. It was the beginning.
From that minor team, a considerable cohort would graduate to the senior dressing room. In August, the likes of Shane Ryan, Killian Spillane, Tom O’Sullivan and Brian Ó Beaglaioch claimed their second All-Ireland medal.
Rob O’Sé’s path ran differently. Last weekend in Perth, he was driving St Finbarr’s to the Western Australia Men’s Senior Football Championship.
“We had a brilliant schools team (Pobalscoil Chorca Dhuibhne). Football was huge in the family, the first thing on our mind. When you think back, we won the minor All-Ireland and a Hogan Cup, Éamonn Fitzmaurice was our manager for the school and Jack O’Connor for the minor.
“Even with the school's team we had, there were ten of us with the Kerry minor panel at the same time. So a third was from West Kerry. It was just a great year.”
That generation’s subsequent success hardly came as a surprise. Nor did the guiding hand of the manager who set them on their way. “Jack was really good, he never lost it. He had so much experience.”
The An Ghaeltacht man, a cousin of the late, great Dr Seán Murphy, is now into his second year Down Under having taken a career break from teaching in Carrigaline in Cork. He was Player of the Match in the Championship and League finals. He was named Western Australia Player of the Year. He hadn’t expected any of it.
“I was very surprised by the standard. You don’t know what to expect when you come out. There was a lot of lads involved in county teams out here, a few lads on the Donegal panel last year with Jim McGuinness. It’s the lifestyle as well. A lot of lads do HYROX or whatever, just really into fitness.
“The season started in January and it’s finished now. At home, it can feel like it goes on and on. The weather is a big difference, obviously. I didn’t know what to expect coming on, I had spoken to lads out here from home who explained the clubs are good to help lads settle in or with work.
“In the year before I left, it was in the back of my mind. I’m getting closer to 30 and stuff, a lot of friends had moved out to Australia as well.”
The new rules have been implemented in the Western Australia championship. At Tom Bateman Reserve for the final, the only difference was that the pitch linings looked blue and there was no 65. For O’Sé, it meant his first taste of the new world was on the other side of the globe.
“It is so fast. The kickout and stuff, it is no joke getting back out in 30 degree heat.
“You are trying to keep up with football at home but with the time difference, you aren’t watching live. So it’s all watching them back. It is actually watching for the rules as much as to keep up to date. At the start of the year, lads were playing pre-season and you were trying to catch up as much as you can.” Individual honours are all well and good but the pull of the game itself remains the constant. It was Dingle’s Patrick Sheehy who introduced him to the club and it has become a second parish away from home.
“It was nice to get too I suppose. It’s nice to play good football on top of winning the championship.
“The rules were probably needed more (at club than county.) Games are so enjoyable, club games would have been dire with men behind the ball, but that has gone out the window now. It is great to be on the field now with a chance to win the two-pointer and as a midfielder, I love the new kickouts. The chance to field it with the ball coming out, that is what you want.
“When I think back to 2014 when we won it, it was open football. At that level back then, it wasn’t clogged or anything.”
Some things change. Some don’t.
“Still getting that kick out of the game. What would you do without it?”
