ALL-IRELAND SFC FINAL COUNTDOWN: MALACHY CLERKINhears former greats Ger Power and Mikey Sheehy heap praise on the achievements of the current Kerry generation
WEDNESDAY MORNING on Denny Street in Tralee and a miserable squall whips up around the ears of the pikeman’s statue. It’s as if the summer has lost interest finally and given up all pretence of being helpful. The heat has gone, the Roses are long gone and if it wasn’t for the odd flag hanging out of a window here and there you’d swear blind it was time to start readying the Christmas shopping.
“Jesus, we’d be lost without football,” says Mikey Sheehy as we find a seat in a quiet corner.
A stray air-strike on Denny Street this morning would keep the obituarists in clover for a month. In the space of 20 minutes Sheehy, Ger Power, John O’Keeffe and Darragh Ó Sé all walk through the hotel bar. Seánie Walsh is just a few doors down, Colm Cooper is in the AIB around the corner. Kieran Donaghy stands on the footpath in a black jacket nodding along to a well-meaning word from a passer-by. All Ireland gold, everywhere you look.
Power has the fit and healthy glow of someone who makes men 25 years his junior guiltily hide the biscuit wrapper that came with our coffee. Triathlon training had him in the pool at 7.15 this morning and he’ll get a cycle in later too. He’s one of the few to come out the other end of his playing days with everything intact – where Sheehy still carries a bit of a limp, Power bustles on without a hitch.
“Lucky enough,” he smiles. “Got out in time.” Weeks like this are to be enjoyed. Chat away, hop balls, tease the final out if you can. When push meets shove, they can both see the Kerry forwards scoring too much for Dublin to match but at the same time they see a different Dublin now to the one Kerry whipped in 2009. Less flashy. More honest. Dangerous enough.
Jack O’Connor closed training last night so he’s the talk of the county this morning. Didn’t happen in Micko’s day, etc, etc. To Sheehy’s mind, he was right. These things can be a runaway train if you don’t pull the occasional brake.
“I went along myself to a training session a couple of years ago before the 2008 All-Ireland. It was the famous year where Paul Galvin had been out for the summer but had made it back for the final against Tyrone. And Jesus, the training session was a circus.
“They did a few drills and settled down for a game then and all you could hear was a fella yahooing in the stands any time Galvin or the Gooch touched the ball. You could see the lads on the pitch thinking, ‘Well this whole thing is getting beyond a joke now’. It wasn’t right – they couldn’t get any proper work done.”
Part of them would switch places with the players on Sunday but not one atom of them would trade for the rest of the week. The training, the press, the goldfish bowl – it’s all at a level now that bears no relation to what they went through. Even though they trained till they emptied, they still trained to be fit rather than to be body-builders with boots on. Press interest was a once-a-year thing, to be laughed off rather than be bothered about.
And of course – crucial difference – they could play away without having to bump into Mikey Sheehy and Ger Power and John O’Keeffe every time they went to buy a litre of milk. Or be reminded of them and their deeds unless and until they come close to equalling them. Only a couple of months back, Darran O’Sullivan was pointing out that his three All-Irelands don’t mean a huge amount in a county where that’s more or less the base level of what’s acceptable.
“I would have sympathy for these players that they have to deal with that kind of thing,” says Sheehy. “It’s just very unfair to compare eras. In my eyes – and I genuinely mean this – any time that wins an All-Ireland are worth their salt. They owe nothing to nobody after that. There’s ferocious focus from the media and the public on them. It’s unfair on them and it goes OTT at times.
“That’s the biggest difference with when we were playing. This focus on them every week of the summer, even through the league, it’s massive.”
Power is inclined to cut them a break too. He says:
“The Kerry players today probably don’t get the credit they deserve. They’ve been in eight out of the last 10 finals, which is incredible. The back-door has helped because they’d be tough to beat twice in the one year and they can learn from their mistakes and come back. But even so, what they’ve done over the past decade is incredible.”
And now, a classic final. In Kerry they’ll always fancy a crack at Dublin in a decider. “I’ve always said it,” enthuses Sheehy, “even when I was playing the best finals atmosphere-wise were always the ones with Dublin in them.
“There’s nothing better than to see the Hill full and giving plenty to the free-taker. I got it and I’m sure whoever’s kicking the frees in the final will get it too. I always felt it was good banter instead of any kind of jeering. The GAA needs Dublin, no doubt about it.”
“I think the public down here are waiting for this for the past five years or so,” says Power.
“In general, we need Dublin back in the All-Ireland final. It gives the whole thing a better buzz altogether. They’re getting to grips with the hurling up there now and they’ll do the same with the football. There’s a bit of history there with Kerry too.”
A bit of history? It’s early in the week yet but already the competition for understatement of the final is clearly at a close.
