Sideline view: Kieran Donaghy fits the bill for modern maor uisce

Kerry coach Kieran Donaghy before the McGrath Cup final. Pic: Michael P Ryan/Sportsfile

You may have realised by now that Kieran Donaghy isn’t being listed as an official member of the Kerry management team.

To do that would prohibit the 2006 footballer of the year from lining out as an extremely over-qualified maor uisce, imparting more wisdom than he is water from his berth on the opposite side of the pitch to Jack O’Connor and the rest of his management team.

Regulations dictate that no official team personnel, substitutes, injured players or extended panel members can fill one of the two water/hurley carrier positions.

But Kerry aren’t exactly pulling a fast one – so long as the former Armagh coach isn’t listed as a coach/selector and isn’t wearing or using a communications device, he is legit.

Besides, they’re all at it. Last year, Galway coach John Divilly wore one of the bibs. Three years ago, Dublin’s 2011 All-Ireland winning manager Pat Gilroy did the same for Dessie Farrell as they went onto lift the Sam Maguire Cup.

The same means of circumventing the absence of the maor foirne runs through hurling too. Michael Rice (Kilkenny), David O’Callaghan (Dublin) and Seamus Callanan (Offaly) are coaches who have been double jobbing. In the past, Diarmuid O’Sullivan, Donal O’Grady and Eoin did the same for Cork, Limerick and Tipperary respectively.

It was Dublin coach Greg Kennedy who virtually ended the maor foirne in 2019 when he caught TJ Reid’s free in the Leinster SHC round game in Nowlan Park. It didn’t help either that there were incidents like Tipperary and Wexford’s Tommy Dunne and Seoirse Bulfin rowing beside a goal in that year’s All-Ireland SHC semi-final or Jason Sherlock and Tommy Griffin sharing unpleasantries in the football final.

“Not my proudest moment,” says Griffin, maor foirne and assistant manager to Peter Keane at the time and recent All-Ireland senior club winning coach with Dingle. 

“It’s our own fault that they ended up getting rid of it (the maor foirne was disbanded in 2021) but it’s a disaster getting messages on at the moment. Even with the club, in a half-full Croke Park for the final or Killarney or Cork or Thurles, it was so hard.” 

Not that Griffin divulges much except to say the Dingle management were able to get their point across, but he completely understands why coaches are turning water carriers. If the pitch can’t be entered, it must be surrounded.

“The Premiership boys are writing out notes. It would be a bit of a job doing that in Gaelic football. But you saw how Dublin got around it with Pat Gilroy a few years ago. It was great thinking. Donaghy is a huge name to be in that position now for Kerry. No better man to get a message on from the other side of the field.

“I know it might be circumventing the regulations but I guess it’s a GAA solution to a GAA question. Like, it has to be somebody who has been on the field with them during the week. It has to be a coach. Sure, all the play could be on his side of the field depending on wind and the way the new game has gone.” 

Griffin expects Donaghy as forwards coach will be on the sideline of the opponent’s half of the pitch. He is allowed to alternate as such, although for the Roscommon game in Killarney he stayed in the same position for both halves in front of the Michael O’Connor Terrace.

“The advantage of having somebody like him there, you have to use it. You have to let the guys play their own game and we learned this year that sometimes the less you say, the better, but who better to have on the line than himself?

“He’s a former footballer of the year, an All-Ireland winning coach with Armagh, and if there is something to be said, he’ll say it. If lads have something to ask, they can go over to him for a quick word.

“I’m sure for Armagh against Kerry last year, they would have wanted to get a word onto the field for those 10 or 15 minutes of madness but it was just so hard in the middle of a cauldron. It’s different gravy.” 

Donaghy kicks every ball and his personality is as big as his frame. High-profile water carriers like Kennedy, John Toal, Darren Hughes and Peter Crowley have been suspended before but the stakes are so high now that Griffin expects his old team-mate will keep the right side of officials.

“You open your mouth now, you get stuck into the ref, linesman or fourth official and it’s a two-point free to the opposition. We were well marshalled in the All-Ireland club final by the fourth official and our bainisteoir Mr (Pádraig) Corcoran had us well warned.

“It’s frightening, actually. In the Rathmore-Austin Stacks county semi-final. Stacks scored a point, then something was reported to the sideline to the ref Brendan Griffin. He booked a Rathmore selector and Stacks kicked the ball over the bar again. It was an eye-opener.

“You just have to suck up decisions and some referees are more lenient than others but I’m sure the likes of Donaghy know what they can and cannot do.

“To consider you could be the cause of your team losing. Nobody will miss you from the sideline if you’re suspended but if you cost your team an All-Ireland semi-final or final, you’d be packing the bags and heading to the airport.”