Kerry’s Mark Griffin: Starting over in Cork gave me a fierce lease of life
Former Kerry football Mark Griffin joined Éire Óg in 2022. Pic: Denis Boyle
A new chapter. A new challenge. A new lease of life. Welcome embrace of having to prove oneself, at the age of 30, all over again.
When Mark Griffin returned to live in Cork in 2021, he spent six months commuting back down to South Kerry to line out for St Michael’s/Foilmore. It was a round-trip reaching up to five hours in length. All that time in the driver’s seat fed niggles and injuries and frustration with the whole taxing ordeal.
Griffin and his wife, who works in Cork University Hospital, were looking to purchase and put down permanent roots on Leeside, ideally on the Kerry side of the city.
Familiar from his college-going days at CIT, he made contact with Éire Óg and former Cork pair Ciarán Sheehan and Daniel Goulding. The men of Ovens and Farran were just after their maiden campaign at Premier Senior level. It was a campaign where the freshly promoted outfit properly frightened eventual champions St Finbarr’s at the quarter-final juncture.
Éire Óg is where Mark Griffin opted to start again on the football front.
The locals knew what they had inherited ahead of the 2022 season. A seven-season Kerry senior. Touching on 70 appearances between league and championship. An All-Ireland winner in 2014. Someone who had lined out in an All-Ireland final as recently as 2019.
All that brought and boiled expectation. There’d be no dressing-room back seat for this newbie.
“I actually found it gave me a fierce lease of life. It was a new challenge, so it was exciting from that point of view because you kind of had to prove yourself again, whereas in your own club, they know you, they have a certain expectation of what you can do,” said the now 34-year-old.
“But coming into a new [environment], I found it a bit of a challenge. Paudie Kissane was the coach at the time, and I found him very good. He was constantly challenging us, and me as well, to do things I hadn't in the past.
“It wasn't all smooth sailing, but Éire Óg is a very good club, very welcoming, and it's worked out well.”
Whatever about the locals and their expectations, Griffin himself wanted to justify the status that comes with having worn the green and gold at the highest level.
“Yeah, there was definitely an element of that. I suppose they would have seen me or whatever. Playing with Kerry, there's a bit of a profile there that they would have known about and maybe had a certain thought of what I might be able to do.
“But just being a competitor, you just want to go out there and perform, and what you've done before is kind of irrelevant. These people don't know you. It'd be easy for them to say, this guy, who is he coming up here? I suppose there was an element of that as well.”
His time in new colours has been spent more looking down than up. Éire Óg fought relegation in 2022 and ‘24. They fought it successfully during his debut season, not so 12 months ago. There’s a refreshing honesty in his assessment of that drop.
“We performed fairly poorly. It was no hard luck story. We deserved what we got last year at the end of it. There’s a motivation to put that right this year. But look, we're only in the semi-final at the moment,” continued Griffin, who works for Jones Engineering in the construction of high voltage substations for large scale renewable energy projects.
Asked to compare and contrast club fare in his native and adopted counties, Griffin noted how both were familiar and equally frustrating until the advent of the new rules.
Having spent nearly all of his Kerry existence inside in the full-back line, the redrawing of the game and its current complexion represents a welcome throwback to how he was first educated as a corner-back.
“It was always, that's your man, and you mark him one-on-one. But that went from the game from 2010 onwards. It was mostly blanket cover, hold them up, and then somebody to support you.
“I'm not in there at the moment for Éire Óg, but I always enjoyed it if it was one-on-one for the ball, a competition.
“The rules are an absolute godsend. It's way more enjoyable to play.”
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