Daniel O'Mahony: 'Changing the currency of a goal would bring back one-on-ones - defenders love that'
CHALLENGER: Cork's Daniel O'Mahony embraces the high-wire act of one-on-one defending. Pic: Michael P Ryan/Sportsfile
The conversation with Daniel O’Mahony is reaching a natural conclusion. There are few areas of the pitch or his preparation we haven’t covered.
The Cork full-back is asked, as a point of clarification, if former Kerry defender Aidan O’Mahony is his uncle.
“He is,” Daniel replies. “Aidan would have been a massive hero of mine growing up.” Clarification given, plus the subsequent line of admiration for his five-time All-Ireland winning uncle, that should have been that. But then comes the addendum. A passionate addendum at that, voluntarily offered up.
There’s loose talk Daniel O’Mahony wants put to bed. It’s with regard to his choice of clothing at Cork-Kerry games going back the years.
The loose talk claims he wore green and gold on occasion. Blasphemous behaviour, if true.
The rumours also have him in rival colours when going down to Rathmore train station to welcome uncle Aidan home after Kerry’s All-Ireland final wins of the late noughties.
“This has been disputed but I always wore a Cork jersey! Genuinely, I have the photos to prove it,” he says, half-joking, half absolutely deadly serious.
“You'd get it the odd time, 'You're a Kerryman' or whatever. But no, my dad's from Kerry and my mom's from Cork, so half the family would have supported Kerry, half would have supported Cork growing up.
“We would have had the homecomings in 2007, 2009, and I would have been down there with the only Cork jersey in Rathmore.” Daniel is from the far side of the Cork-Kerry line. He’s one of four Knocknagree players - goalkeeper Pa Doyle and the McSweeneys, Eoghan and Michael, the other three - part of the Cork panel. Not bad for a half-parish, as John Fintan Daly calls them.
With an unprecedented number of locals in red, a good few from their side of the Cork-Kerry border made the 11-hour round-trip to Omagh for last Sunday’s promotion clincher “They live and breathe football in Knocknagree, so they're great to travel. It's brilliant for our small club to have four.”
O’Mahony was given the Darragh Cavanan brief at Healy Park. He’ll be asked to shadow Jordan Morris on Sunday, the same as he was asked to tie him down when Meath visited Páirc Uí Rinn in mid-February, the same as he’ll once again be instructed to stand beside David Clifford should Cork reach the Munster final.
When you are your team’s outstanding man-marker, basic management dedicates that you are matched up with the opposition’s outstanding inside forward.
O’Mahony and his ilk are more exposed by the game’s new parameters. Happy days, says the Cork full-back. Expose us further. Change the currency of a green flag. Give greater encouragement to the talismen to go bald-headed each time.
Here’s a fella who can’t get enough of high-wire defending, irrespective of occasionally falling off the tightrope.
“I'd like to see it go even more one-to-one,” is O’Mahony’s rather revealing take.
“Make the goal worth four points. Make teams attack the goal, because at the moment we're probably seeing a lot of teams really go after two-pointers, which you'd be a fool not to with the scoring system.
“It takes some one-v-ones out of it, because you've a lot of playing the ball around the arc and trying to get shooting opportunities, as opposed to kicking the ball in and going at teams.
“We all grew up watching this romanticised game of long balls being kicked in, one-v-one battles inside. As a defender, that's what you want to be involved in. That's why you're playing. You're not playing to skirt around the arc and do some bit of defending. I just think it would be a more enjoyable spectacle.”
We bring the 25-year-old PWC Deals Advisory associate back to the pouring rain of Páirc Uí Chaoimh last April. Kerry are in town for the Munster semi-final.
Joe O’Connor is lording kickouts on either side. He and Kerry aren’t hanging about in the middle. There’s either a short kickpass to Dylan or Paul Geaney before attempting to find Clifford inside or they are going straight to Clifford. The latter’s dance partner is the busiest operator in red for the first 25 minutes or so.
Is his relishing of one-on-one combat still as ravenous in that situation?
“You want to be on the right side of those ones. But that's what's enjoyable. If you're a defender and you've spent 10 years training to be a defender, why not be in those situations where you want to be? It's the most exciting way to play.
“You're probably planning it a couple of days in advance in terms of how you want to mark a player. Sometimes you get it wrong. You're trying to obviously set the conditions whereby you're going to mark him in the best way that suits you and the best way that doesn't suit him.
“You try to put that in practice and then after that, instinct kicks in obviously because while you can put yourself in good positions, inevitably when that ball is kicked, it may not be where you think it's going to go or he might be in a different position, so then you go to instinct. It's probably a mix of preparation and instinct.”
Clifford kicked eight from play that Saturday night in the rain. Morris managed 0-3 last month, the same as Canavan last weekend. What number used to trouble O'Mahony and what number now troubles him are not even third cousins.
“If he's a good forward, you're saying, if we can keep him to four or five from play, it can be a great day. It's just being mature about it and realising that just because he gets one score, it's not the end of the world. Being able to go again is really important.”
He and Cork go again this Sunday. Defeat will be anything but the end of the world. Promotion, not silverware, was the spring priority.
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