Vanilla Version 1.0

On the Sunday morning after the last football tournament of the season, someone approached Johnny Phelan and told him he'd hate to play for our team. Johnny questioned why he would say that and the reply related to our defensive style of play. Similar comments were relayed at the Guernsey tournament from opposing players.

I take no offence from the comments as I experienced first hand what it is like to play against us when we played some in-house games in the run up to Limerick. It was horrible. The work rate of the lads made it very difficult to find space in the attacking half of the pitch and indeed, it makes for a very dull and frustrating game if you are in opposition.

I would disagree with the suggestion that we are just a defensive team though. We were very focused on attacking in the same numbers with which we defended. I think good evidence in this regard was that we used five backs in Limerick; myself, Crusher, Ross, Keary and Diarmuid Lynch. Crusher was the only one not to score but he was the one who probably attacked the most. Whilst not registering on the score sheet that day, he was much more prominent on it in Guernsey.

Our plan was always to attack en masse but where we fell short was getting the required number of shots off. Bar maybe one occasion in the Pan-Euro series, we had the chances to win every game we played. Each time we created clear cut goal chances. You'll never convert 100% of those chances though so you need to create enough of them to make sure the percentages fall in your favour. We didn’t unfortunately.

There were fellas kicking great points in training games in the lead up to Limerick but we didn't bring that confidence to the tournament. Myself and Conan could be partly to blame for that. We gave most players a fairly specific brief but didn't emphasise the shooting aspect enough. Our focus needs to shift in that direction next year.

IT companies often have what they call a 'vanilla' package of their software products. This is basically an offering of the product in its most basic and bland format - no frills attached. Our style was like that this year but next year we will certainly invest in some new features. We focused on getting a strong work ethic in the team and setting solid foundations in defence. We touched upon attacking play but took the view that we needed to nail the work rate and defensive aspects first. I'd have no regrets about this approach. We learned a lot between mid-August and the end of October but to think we could have done more would be naive.

The reason I bring this subject up a month and a half after the season finished is because I head into the Christmas break confident that our work has had a lasting effect. In our recent in-house games, where all instructions etc were relaxed (!) as possible, lads fell straight back into the groove. Games were competitive despite being 7 a side. The work rate was good and we encouraged lads to shoot more. The result was not always so fantastic on the scoreboard but we will put that down to pressure rather than wayward shooting!!

Last Thursday's game was our final one before we restart training on the last day of January. To a certain extent I always felt this year was more about next year as we were rebuilding after the summer.

For now though, the focus is on Christmas. I head home via Amsterdam tonight and will stay until the 27th. I’ll then head for New York to bring in the New Year with Bolster before returning to Brussels on January 3. Not a blog entry or a spare thought for G.A.A. between now and then!

Merry Christmas!!

Drinking in the G.A.A.

With Fianna Fail and the Catholic church in a heap, the G.A.A. has stood tall as the last of those famous three main pillars of Irish society. It is an onerous status to behold and one in which they are merely cast into the firing line rather than being showered with praise.


A simple example is the noise made about Guinness' sponsorship of the All-Ireland Hurling Championship. Never once have I heard anyone complain about Heineken's relationship with the European Rugby Cup and Champions League or formerly Magners' liaison with the Anglo-Celt (?) league. Even in other countries, you have Carling sponsoring the Premiership and the League cup in English soccer and for a period both Celtic and Rangers. The pillar that is the G.A.A. continues to stand so people will continue to try and knock it. It's a sad part of our psyche.


With that said, we cannot deny the sometimes suspect relationship between our players and alcohol. A study last year indicated that G.A.A. players drink more than their non-playing peers. Over half of those surveyed, binge drink regularly (more than six standard drinks). On the flipside, only 8% of players surveyed were smokers which was well below the average in the peer group. Smoking tends to be more frowned upon by players. I think it’s because the most noticeable effect of drinking i.e. the hangover, wears off with a good night sleep. On the other hand, the smoker will experience more consistent after effects such as coughing, shortness of breath etc when training.


G.A.A. is very competitive at every level in Ireland and players’ preparation seems to be greater and greater every year. When I go home now I notice the size of fellas and it's clear a lot more lads are in the gym then when I was last playing regularly at home. Some lads will go off drink for months during the Championship.


I know the situation well myself. I’ve always been a fairly conservative drinker during the season but then when we'd be done and dusted in November, I'd fully enjoy the month or two off season, countering the effects of drinking by playing hockey. We used to have a drink ban two days prior to matches and by and large I respected it but the rest of the week was my own. In accordance with the definition of binge drinking, I certainly fitted the bill. It was a case of all or nothing and pretty much still is but on a less frequent basis.


The extreme nature of a G.A.A. players drinking i.e. either 'on it' or 'off it' has led to some extreme proposals over the years. The one that stands out most for me is a proposal (which I think was discussed at Congress) to drill a hole in the bottom of all G.A.A. cups so as to get rid of the direct association between winning and drinking. Basically it was removing the possibility to 'fill the cup' and pass it around a pub, often into the hands of underage drinkers I guess.


The G.A.A.'s latest initiative is 'Off the booze, on the ball' and it is being rolled out by the G.A.A.'s drink awareness unit ASAP (Alcohol & Substance Abuse Prevention). The idea is to challenge players to have a 'dry' January and in doing so try and raise money for your club i.e. thirty players give up drink for the month and raise €100 each (€3000 collectively).


This initiative will generate publicity about the issue which is probably the main aim of it. However, what do you think will happen on February 1st? I'm pretty sure it will by a fairly impressive exhibition of binge drinking by G.A.A. players all over the country.


On the Monday prior to the Limerick tournament this year, Olof organised a party for Halloween. What I wanted to do was send a volley load of abuse in his direction about doing such a thing so close to the last tournament of the year. I have become better at not trying to entirely impose my ways on players so I resisted. It was a long weekend here and we had had a good in-house game on the Saturday.

To ask lads to not go out is particularly difficult in Brussels as the social dynamic is a bit different. A lot of fellas live on their own or with people they aren't particularly friendly with. Their families are not here. To get some social interaction they need to go out. Because of the way we are built, to go out and not drink, rightly or wrongly, will actually only create tension in someone which is not the way you want them feeling in the build up to a tournament, I know it myself because I struggle on such weekends if I don't have a plan or something to work on.


The Belgians have a very different attitude to drink. It would not be uncommon to see someone having a small beer at 10 or 11 in the morning. They'd drink it like we would drink coffee. At lunchtime, people will often have wine or beer and some workplaces even stock it in the canteen. You'd regularly see tradesmen with a can during a break. It's even common to see a policeman in uniform and in a bar drinking beer. However, it is very rare you will see anyone drunk on the street at night, even in the small hours.

Occasionally our lads may have a beer at 10 or 11 in the morning but not in the Belgian way! It will either be to finish off a session from the night before and kick start a session that day!

I'm not sure is it worth your while setting strict guidance about drinking. You set yourself up for having to make difficult decisions should someone ignore it. I think you can only drill home the importance of preparing yourself properly and ensuring that when the ball is thrown in, your body is in as good a condition as you can get it to.

Outside The Zone

Looking a bit special during one of the exercises

Bring an assortment of random G.A.A. people into a room together and you can be sure it won’t be all handshakes and smiles initially. There’s a fair share of ‘scoping’ going on. Fellas looking you up and down trying to figure you out; age, build, gear. They all give clues. Maybe you will have come across one of the participants at some other event and you’ll warm to them slightly more easily but not the others!

There were over twenty of us on the recent Tutor training course run by the Leinster Council and held in Maynooth College. The initial meet and greet pretty much went to form.

The tutor trainers are good at what they do and within the hour the atmosphere had relaxed. This was aided by suitable energizers and ice breakers to break down any barriers. One in particular sticks out. We were all given a typical greeting from a country and had to quickly go around the room greeting everyone using it. There was a lad called Christy from Wicklow on the course. He’s bald, well built, basically not someone you’d mess with. He came up to me and eyeballed me and started moving his head back and forth towards me. Eventually I said ‘what?’. He replied, ‘eskimo’! His greeting was to rub noses.

I was there thanks to the European County Board who organised for four people from Europe (Tangi from Brest, Anna Marie from Rennes and Olivier from Liffre) to join the course and supported financially to make it feasible.

The aim of the course is to develop tutors, who will then go and deliver Foundation and Level 1 courses to coaches. The main skills which are developed on the course are presentation, listening, questioning and feedback. This ties in with learning the syllabus by making everyone do five presentations over the four weekends based on the course’s content.

The first night was intimidating enough to be honest. Coming from Europe you always feel you have to prove yourself a little more. You are away from mainstream G.A.A. and in many people’s minds, there is only mainstream G.A.A.

In the group was a mix of current and former inter-county players as well as lads working as Games Development Administrators for the G.A.A. Naturally you wouldn’t feel so comfortable sitting amongst such experience. However, it quickly became evident that everyone in the group had insecurities. In one of the first exercises, we had to list a few things which we were apprehensive about. Presentations, knowledge, ability to coach coaches were all listed as things which worried fellas. Once those were put out there, everyone felt more at ease.

Over the four weeks there must have been ten different tutors brought in to deliver different modules. The variety of styles was excellent and kept things constantly fresh.

We had five presentations as I mentioned. Mine were; Experience as a coach, Teaching the punt kick, The OTu Coaching Model, Effective use of playing facts in the half-time team talk and finally, tactical prowess (decision making). The punt kick and tactical prowess were practicals.
Through practice and feedback, we were all very comfortable delivering presentations by the end of the course. What I liked about the assignments was the individuality you were encouraged to bring to them. There are existing presentations to deliver on the courses but as long as you meet the desired outcomes, you were given a free reign to make your own. The fact you could test things out in a controlled environment really encouraged you to experiment.

I’d be at my most relaxed in a pair of runners and tracksuit so boarding the Brussels-Dublin flight for these weekends in such attire was a pleasure. Spending a weekend in them and amongst other coaches was like a dream come through. We learned as much off each other as we learned off the tutors and there was near non-stop discussion about coaching and G.A.A. over the four weeks.

We were broken into sub-groups and I had Colm Browne in our group. He’s the newly appointed Games Development Manager in Laois and the only Laois man to claim a football All-Star. He played in the Compromise Rules in 1987 and went on to coach Tipperary, Laois and his club Portlaoise.

However, Colm, like everyone else on the course, had no ego. There was a huge amount of knowledge and experience in the room and everybody respected each other’s opinion and freely shared theirs. Still, you can’t but feel a bit self-conscious when you are delivering a practical to fellas like Colm about decision making!!

Typically Irish, once the barriers are down, it was easy to make connections with people. I got a lift to the airport one weekend off James Devlin from Swords. He’s a club mate of former Paris Gael player Dave Lennon. Shane Flanagan is working for the Leinster G.A.A. and oversees many of these courses. I’d have met his brother Ronan when he was living in Brussels in 2005/2006. A new face, that I will see again is Eddie. In February he will bring his club over from Wexford for a weekend in Brussels.

One of the highlights was a workshop with Paudie Butler, the G.A.A.’s #1 hurling guru. The man has incredible presence. Initially he pretty much struck fear into us with his intensity. For the first time on the course, I was completely tongue tied when he asked me a basic question. I wasn’t alone.

We grew into his style though and he was drilling into us the need to be concise and cut out unnecessary words. He did this by repeatedly striking a tyre with a hurley, each time with the exact same technique. He went around the room one by one and you had to describe some part of his action, explaining with exactly the right words.

Paul Gallagher failed to find them when he said, ‘you stepped into the tyre’. Paudie duly stepped into the middle of the tyre and asked Paul whether he had really stepped into the tyre?! The point was that it you wanted to ‘spot and fix’ a players technique you had to be very precise about your instruction for the player to understand. You’d probably have had to be there!

You get a great sense of achievement during the course because you are constantly tested with the tasks and the situations you are put in, leaving you looking from the outside in at your own comfort zone the majority of the time.

As we finished up on Saturday, it was clear we had built a good rapport and fellas really enjoyed bouncing ideas off each other over the few weeks. We learned constantly off each other and I think most would say they left the course having learned a huge amount about being an effective tutor as well as becoming a better coach.
The tutor’s reckon it was the best group they’ve put through the course. Hopefully that means we all passed and can get going at delivering the courses in 2012. It certainly was one of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had in a long time.

Catching Up

There was a slideshow running on loop at the end of year dinner which told the story of the 2011 season. It was brought together by Sylvia and the 300 odd photos were broken up into all the different tournaments and events. When I watched it, I was somewhat taken aback by the number of different of places and activities which it included. There were trainings, tournaments, fundraisers, random drinking sessions/parties and even some holiday photos.

What struck me most was the expressions on everyone's faces. Most showed people smiling or lauging. Some were not so joyful but even those had a sense of togetherness as everyone appeared to suffer together, be it in defeat or hangover!

It reconfirms to me a point we made at the end of the season. Whilst the season was not a success in terms of winning the hurling or football championship, we pointed to the number of times we were in each other’s company - whether it be training, tournaments or socialising - and told the lads that they should remember how often they left those events feeling good about their involvement in the club.

Those good times and events are not confined to the season either. Most of my holidays and weekends away have been with people from the club. Aside from G.A.A. events, I travelled to Rome, Greece, Slovenia and Toulouse with teammates this year. The latest trip brought us to London and also highlighted another positive; we rarely lose touch, even with former players.

Myself, Tim, Colin, Crusher, Ger and Giller hopped on the Eurostar and headed for the UK to meet up with Ollie, Rochey and Micheal O'Flynn last weekend. Planning such an event is never difficult. Lads are always eager to catch up and fall straight back into enjoying the craic. It's nearly four years since Micheal was here and even then, he only stayed three months but he always makes the effort to link up with us. This weekend was no different.

We covered a ferocious amount of ground over three nights. A 'few quiet' ones in Clapham on Thursday were followed up with a bit of a hell-raiser on Friday night in Stockwell's finest nightclub, The Swan. It was Camden on Saturday afternoon and then out to Shepards Bust to see The Saw Doctors. A falafel later and we were heading east towards Hackney to join Rochey's girlfriend at a house party. We'd settle in The Dolphin until the early hours of Sunday morning.

There is no need to elaborate further on what happened between stepping on and off the Eurostar, except to point you in the direct of 'The Hangover' movie. Think a third edition, based in London. Unfortunately, I was the one returning missing half a front tooth on this occasion. Whether further details of the weekend 'are of public interest or in the public's interest to know' (Oliver O'Callaghan, 2011) is debatable but for now they are neither. As we crossed London Bridge at 5am on Sunday, Collie B lifted his head for the last time and declared that 'it was a pleasure to drink with ye lads....even you Giller'. That pretty much sums it up.

Someone said to me last night that the club was a bit flat this year. Indeed we are at a certain point of the cycle. The club has grown and there are pockets of different people but that is only natural. The important thing is that the club keeps bringing people in and that they can feel the bond that is there. That is our biggest strength, once you are in and you feel that, it is very hard to leave. It's why lads come back for end of year dinners and why we make the effort to visit them wherever they move on to.

Long may it continue (all be it with a few weeks break!)

Decision Making

I'm currently doing a G.A.A. tutor training course in Ireland. The course is run over four weekends, in Maynooth College. Last weekend we reviewed the Level 1 syllabus and touched upon the area of decision making. The debate was lengthy and the master tutors said it was one of the trickiest modules to deliver because of the difficulties in nailing down practical examples of how to develop it.

As referenced recently, we had planned an intra-club league over the winter but player numbers have turned this into weekly head to head battles. One of the things we can't do enough of during the year is play full pitch games so this is a great opportunity to give lads more match practice and for them to learn how to cope with different situations in a match scenario. In summary, it can help improve our decision making.

There have been two main positives from the first two games. The first is that it has brought back in some guys who had drifted. Hieler, Bobby, Pat Barrett, Will, Alan Rowan, Deccie are a few lads who we hadn't seen much of during the 2011 season.

The second positive is that fellas automatically fell straight back into the style of play which we had in the latter part of the year, without prompting from me. This confirms that it is now engrained in the mindset and when we restart training in February we can look to build and improve on it, rather than having to spend time relearning it. The new/returning lads are also beginning to learn it and that will benefit them and the team when the new season arrives.

Of course, just because it is off season doesn't mean lads shouldn't use the opportunity to improve themselves. I'm currently reading 'Patriot Reign'. It's a book that tells the story of Bill Belicheck's early years in charge of the New England Patriots when he brought a very unfancied 'franchise' to Super Bowl success and onwards to create a bit of a dynasty in New England.

In the book, it mentions a meeting at the start of one season. He starts his address by telling the group that there is not one person in the room who cannot improve in the coming season, including himself. It's a simple and apparently obvious statement but not something we necessarily think about every time we step out on the pitch. It applies to everybody in every situation. Sometimes the stronger players get into a comfort zone because within the group they get the most plaudits and as a result feel they are doing enough. You can always improve but it's up to the individual to challenge himself to improve.

Back to the decision making point. To focus the minds, we just identified two improvement points for last night’s game. The first was to shoot more, as it is something we didn't do enough of last year. The second was to sharpen our passing as last week we gave very loose passes that weren't directly to the man and we turned over a load of possession as the ball skidded away on the surface.

The tricky bit for me is to keep my mouth shut and let guys have the freedom to make their own decisions. You have to hope by doing so they will see what works best most often and what doesn't. For example, some guys went for shots from outside their range or from tricky angles. You'd expect that next week, fellas would have learned, understand their range of kicking and make the right decision.

Relating to the passing, we pointed out after one of the 'quarters' that we were turning over a high percentage of balls with long kick passes. We showed only marginal improvement afterwards but the purpose of these games is not to continuously bang the drum. Again, guys need to think about their own game, figure out what they are strong at and make sure they play to those strengths. With that said, you also need to improve the weaker aspects of your game and by not ranting and raving (too much!) when kick passes go astray, it gives lads the freedom to find out by themselves.

The key to it all is what Belicheck said to his players; we can all improve. You must approach any game or training with that mindset and then you will reap the reward through continuous reflection and adjustment.

Fun Bus II

A Belgium G.A.A. away day, a bus and Johnny Phelan’s GPS. We joked about the Munich fun bus(not really) all the way from Carcassonne Airport to Toulouse. It was going so well; Collie at the wheel, Mull manning the GPS and myself, JP and Johnny sprawled across the back seats.

We were staying in the Mercure and Mull directed us through the narrow streets towards the hotel. France being France, the entry to the car park was ridiculously narrow. The barrier said the max vehicle height was 1.80. Mull confirmed he was 1.80 and got out to do the safety check. Indeed, he was taller than the bus but we were deeply suspicious he was on his tippy toes.

The garage door opened and down we went. Collie B wasn’t happy, the roof looked to be closing in on us. He hesitated and the garage door got jammed on the back of the bus as it tried to close. We urged him on. The lads were hanging out the window guiding him down. I was at the back providing some helpful commentary.

Someone said he had four inches over head. JP got back into the bus to confirm what he thought to be four inches with his hand gesture. It looked more like four cm and the mission was called to a halt. At this stage the sweat was hopping off Colin and there were about five lads - a mix of guests and employees - watching on.

Getting back out was going to be far from easy as we had gone quite a bit down the steep entrance. I’m not sure where our driver did his test but he was struggling with the hill start. The clutch burned and burned as we edged our way back up. Then another stop. Collie B had enough and called for help. One of the French onlookers reached in to help steer our bus back to street level. Embarrassing.

I started to test the water with a few jokes. JP looked terrified at the potential consequences. Then Mull chipped in. ‘This isn’t the hotel, it’s on another bit on the GPS!’. We all took a huge breath awaiting the explosion. It never came. Collie B was just happy to be out! In the end it turned out two of us were staying in that one but inexplicably, four of the lads were around 500m away in another Mercure.

We found a suitable car park nearby and Johnny got out to confirm the dimensions were all in order. As the bus passed under the barrier, Johnny followed by foot. But then he stopped to talk to Mull and the barrier came down and knocked the glasses clean off him!! Haunted.

A dodgy start but we recovered quickly. A few beers sitting outside admiring the lovely ladies and then it was off to The Melting Pot. We were just getting into it when a fella stumbled next to our table and spilt half a pint over Colin’s jacket. There was steam coming out his ears but he held his council as it was a work colleague of one of the lads.

We thought we’d be a bit less predictable and head to some local bars afterwards. It was a tricky scene to get into. I departed around 1am. Next was Johnny, then Collie B but JP and Mull were throwing shapes until 6am.

We were up and about in decent time on Saturday in the search for a few cans. This is a very easy task in Belgium as there are night shops at every corner. JP was promoting the cause of SPAR at home where you can get anything you want, be it sausage rolls, beer or whatever. We succeeded in the end, even if they were warm.

Hagan was on the scene at this stage, already having texted through a concern that morning relating to tickets. He reckoned we had to pick them up at Castres stadium – the bones of an hour and a half drive away! We knew it wasn’t going to sell out so we didn’t panic.

The craic was good en route to the match. However, once there it was a bit of a letdown. The Munster fans were scattered all over the stadium and it was far from full. Of course, most people know how it finished; ROG knocking over a handy kick at the death.

We got briefly separated after the game but reconvened in a tennis club next to the stadium. The lads were tucking into plates of cheese and ham and had cracked open a bottle of red wine. It was a quiet kind of place, not somewhere they would be used to a good row.

I don’t know who brought up Saipan but I couldn’t hold myself. What continuously annoys me about the ‘Mick camp’ is that their whole argument revolves around how Keane ‘walked out on his country’. They flatly refuse to acknowledge the facts – which in this case are, as ‘Mick’ told us, that Roy Keane was sent home.

Anyway, another table intervened and to be honest, I’m not sure how it all came about. Whatever happened, Mull ended up pointing at one of the lads at the table and repeatedly asking him if he was from Waterford. The significance of this was lost on us. Yer man responded by telling Mull that while he was pointing one finger at him, he was pointing three back at himself. After calming Mull, we were about to leave when Hagan spilt a glass of red wine on Collie B!! ‘Paul, these are €150 jeans!’ He’d lost the group at that stage as we struggled to contain ourselves!

We’d learned our lesson the night before so stayed mainstream Saturday night. That meant Trevor Brennan’s De Danu bar. The place was hopping. We ran into a few of the Toulouse G.A.A. crew and I had finally linked up with David Shortall at this point. Shorty plays with Kinsale but only joined after I had left so I felt it necessary to give him a full debrief on a host of topics. I’m sure he felt it valuable and necessary input!!!

With no knowledge of the city, it was remarkable that we all managed to walk home unaided both nights. When we left De Danu, myself and Mull were across the street waiting for Colin. He was trying to read a map upside down and get some directions. We were eager to push on so went over to speed up the process. Feeling brave, I ‘playfully’ knocked the map out of his hand once or twice. I’m usually pretty good at judging his temper but he got very cranky. He may well have pinned me up against the wall leaving my legs dangling! Off he stormed leaving myself and Mull to rely on our instinct.

By the time I got back to the room, the whole thing had been forgotten and he extracted revenge with an exhibition of snoring.

The journey back was far less eventful if you leave out the fact that myself and Mull panned out in the airport and when we work up everyone had boarded the plane!!

Next stop London.

Silence Wears Thin

I’d be a big fan of the off-season. As much as I love training and playing hurling and football, I also love having a few months off to do as I please. If I want to play another sport I can do so, if I want to go drinking a little more frequently I can do that too. I find myself appreciating giving the body a rest more and more these days though.

Others are getting itchy feet already and we are not even three weeks into the winter break. The Shield win gave everyone a huge injection of energy and brought the whole group closer together. Fellas were onto me in the week after about keeping lads active with soccer or whatever during the winter.

We couldn’t get a hall for the soccer but Shane is on the case organising squash and we’ve also decided to arrange some full pitch matches. Personally I’d rather guys had a few months totally free of football but a match one night a week can’t do much harm.

It also gives lads who may have drifted off the scene a chance to come back into a pressure free environment and acclimatise themselves before the season kicks off in February. Last week we put together an email list of such guys and invited them to come back out over the next few weeks. The response so far has been good.

Quite what form the games will take I’m not sure. In the past we had a four team intra club league but we don’t have those numbers at the moment. I’m not too disappointed about that considering how heated that became. We may vary it up each week but everyone should get plenty of football.

That starts tomorrow night and then on Saturday we have the end of year dinner in de Valera’s. It’s a night that has never let anyone down. I think my first one was in 2005 or 2006 and there were around 10-15 people at it. This year we should be pushing 80 or 90.

One of the highlights of the night is always the people who make the effort to come back specifically for it. Ruairi, Ollie and Rochey are a few that spring to mind who are coming back this year. I think the fact that lads are willing to make such an effort says it all about what people here (and in many other GAA playing cities around the world) get/got out of the whole thing.

By coincidence I got a mail from a former player today saying how lucky we were to have it and how much he missed being part of it. He wasn’t here a long time but he caught the bug. It’s a sentiment that is repeated many times during the year as lads move on.

Thursday is a night for tearing lumps out of each other but Saturday will very much be a celebration of this year’s successes on and off the club.

University Challenge

The 2011 season may be just behind us but already we must start to address some of our failings of the year gone by. One of the biggest has been our efforts in recruiting players. For whatever reasons, we struggled to even breakeven in terms of players in / players out. We are in the red and have become somewhat complacent.

The result was that we could not field a third team on any occasion (we did twice in 2010) and failed to field a second team on two occasions. From the panels in Limerick, we will lose at least seven ahead of next year and whilst some guys didn’t travel, we don’t have nearly enough players at the moment to be sure we can continue to field a second team next year.

When we got going in 2008, we quickly realised the importance of giving as many guys game time as possible. It’s important from many viewpoints; numbers at training, overall club numbers, supply people for committee positions, ensure you can travel with two teams to tournaments so everybody can get game time etc. If we hadn’t persisted with a second team, we may well have struggled more in the Championship this year as we wouldn’t have had the supply coming through.

Our 2012 drive starts on Monday night in VUB (Brussels’ main University). The opportunity sort of fell into our lap but has great potential. VUB will become our home ground as of next year and the college contacted us about offering Gaelic Football to their students.

They offered us the pitch for half price for nights where we would invite their students to training. After discussing with Colin, we thought it would be better to start with the students during our off season and get them up to speed before integrating them in with the other lads when we restart in February.

So on Monday night, myself and a couple of others will kick-off what will be a series of seven training sessions prior to Christmas. There will be three additional nights, starting December 1, where we will play an intra-club league, integrating the VUB players with our own players.

We will treat it as a pilot exercise but I’m already thinking of its potential to be developed after Christmas. The idea would be to extend this to two other Universities in Belgium initially; Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve where we know there are Irish Erasmus students who we could work with to get it off the ground.

We could run a kind of ‘Celebrity Bainisteoir’ competition where we would allocate two/three of the lads to each University and train the students up over ten weeks, culminating in a three-way tournament over Paddys weekend.

The icing on the cake would be if you could get some MEP involvement to provide the ‘Celebrity’ to the management teams. It would help raise the profile of the initiative no end and give us a potential source of new players.

That is a little further down the road so for now we will concentrate our attentions on the VUB and hopefully we will get a good response in the coming weeks.

Championship Bar Raised

In the build up to any tournament I’m always looking for something a bit different to capture guy’s attention. It might be a video clip, an article, a quote or something like that. During my search last week, I stumbled across a youtube clip which Hudson sent me.

It was of John Wooden, former basketball coach to UCLA. In it, he was talking about the journey that is a sporting season. He talks about how a Championship winning team experiences the ultimate feeling during that moment in which they achieve success. But that passes and we should look at the journey as a whole and reflect on more than just one moment. Success, he says, is not always judged on whether you end up holding the trophy or not.

For the Belgium Championship panel, 2011 was a success in my opinion. We consolidated from a very difficult position after losing all those players mid-summer. We brought through many new players from the Shield panel. We devised a system and gave players clear roles. We created a panel which could be interchanged seamlessly.

In the end we didn’t win the Championship or even contest a final in any of the three rounds. We had to settle for third on each occasion. It’s hard to swallow in the sense that I hate being on the outside looking in but sometimes you must put that aside, assess where you started from, assess where you finished and make your judgement.

On Saturday we opened against The Hague. It was level at half-time, we had what many onlookers thought was a clear goal, ruled out for square ball. Our downfall was the concession of frees and as always, our opponents were clinical. We would lose 0-8 to 0-6.

Beating Valencia qualified us for a semi-final against Guernsey. We led at the interval but their charge came strong in the second half. Trailing by two, Cillian fisted a high ball against the post. We were denied a penalty which looked clearly inside the box. A free was given instead. We lost out 0-8 to 0-5.

Virtually every occasion we met The Hague and Guernsey, there was at most a goal between us. We are close. Inches, as they say.

For me, this team is still very much a work in progress. My barometer is always how many guys do you have that were playing football up until the day they arrived and how many will be playing football when they go home. That indicates how much work a team will need. We don’t have so many when you compare us to our opponents. What we do have are players with a growing commitment and potential for further improvement.

That is why my disappointment is not so deep. I believe in the direction we chose to go this year and I believe that the team will continue to improve and we can mount our challenge in 2012.

When wrapping up on Saturday, I went back to Wooden’s idea about the journey. I asked the lads to reflect on the successes of the year, in Frankfurt and Amsterdam. I told them to remember all the nights they left training feeling good about themselves and being part of the team, the craic we had over a bit of grub after training and the good times we have spent in each other’s company drinking cans in one of the lads’ gaff’s, travelling Europe etc.

2012 certainly wasn’t a failure. Progress can never be considered like so and we certainly achieved that. Guernsey, winners of the Championship have set the standard. They gave up the drink for weeks prior to the final tournament. They organised cinema nights, go-karting etc. They are worthy champions and in the bid to become so, they have set that standard for the rest to strive towards.

I’ll be giving more and asking more of the lads in 2012. I believe that if they believe, then that small gap can be closed. We have weathered all the storms of 2011 and emerged as a tight group. The Shield win gave the whole set-up a massive lift. We head into the winter eagerly waiting for the new season to start. Not a bad way to have it.

Every Dog Has Their Day

And what a day. It’s hard to find the words to do justice to what our Shield team achieved on Saturday evening, under the fog and the lights in the Gaelic Grounds, Limerick.

The journey to Saturday was longer and tougher than you could imagine. The team had its first outing in the corresponding tournament in Maastricht in 2008. From there they travelled Europe time and again, taking blow after blow against first teams from some of the best teams on the continent. Every time, no matter how hard they were hit, they got back to their feet and faced up to the next challenge.

There were glimmers of hope. A third place in a Benelux in Luxembourg last year. There was a semi in Budapest. On other occasions the team would leave clinging to little bits of hope; a good first half or a strong finish.

From the outset, every effort was made to take this team seriously. The club bought a new set of jerseys. The likes of Conan, Johnny P and Ruairi invested every drop of energy in it. As we said on Saturday, the players came and went but there was a constant spirit which followed the group on the long journey from Maastricht ’08 to Limerick ‘11.

What a day they chose to land their greatest blows. Back home in Ireland with family and friends looking on in disbelief at the drama which unfolded in front of them.

Amsterdam stood in waiting, already having claimed the overall Shield for 2011. Worthy winners as they swept all before. Our lads were controlled but a bit manic before the game. The tone was set.

0-4 to 0-4 at half-time. Leading 0-8 to 0-5 when the referee indicated to Brendan that time was up. The kick-out was sent to the stand but there was no whistle. The ball was returned into the square, hopping and skidding and bouncing off players. Then it was in the net and everything was square again, heading for extra time.

We took the lead but again Amsterdam bounced back. Then another mortal blow landed. Ricky weaved his way through the defence before shipping two hefty challenges, slightly out of sync. He’d jarred his neck and lay motionless.

The game was delayed as the excellent medical team attended to him. Fortunately the x-rays that evening were clear and Ricky was up and about again on Sunday morning. The aftermath showed that despite the competitive nature of games, the community spirit is strong. Many people from other clubs enquired about his well being and I was asked to pass on best wishes from Stockholm, The Hague and Munich. All very much appreciated.

Once the game restarted, the lads came again. Fitting that it was Mike Lucey, close friend of Ricky, who kicked the equaliser. Level at the end of extra time. On to the unprecedented ‘sudden death’ extra time. The next score would seal the victory. The Belgian crowd in the stand made an awful racket as they roared on the lads. The Gaelic Grounds could never have dreamed such a day.

Sheanon was fouled out on the left wing. It wasn’t unimaginable that he could kick it. The strike was clean but it was dropping short. Amsterdam tried to clear their lines but the ball only travelled as far as Pearce on the 21. He’d been telling Cillian a week before, how he’d love to be one of those players who struck the last gasp score and have the crowd storm the pitch. One swing of the boot and a volley over the bar realised that dream.

It was pure ecstasy. I couldn’t get onto the pitch fast enough. Johnny was crying. Conan’s dad was crying. There was a ridiculously dangers pile on of Belgian lads and ladies. A feeling ran through me that I have rarely felt. I don’t think I could have been any happier had I played in the game. I must have hugged everyone twice. That’s twice nearly being squeezed to death by Johnny Phelan.

The Amsterdam lads were incredibly gracious. They are deserving champions and carried themselves like so. We have a competitive but healthy relationship with them. I hope they didn’t take offence to our celebrations but part of it was because it was such an achievement to beat such a strong team.

One of the most pleasing aspects of the victory was how everybody shared in it. The lads on the Championship panel couldn’t be contained. The faces in the pictures which have gone around since tell the story.

I get a disproportionate amount of credit when we have success and it was no different Saturday. However, the real drivers of Saturday’s success were Conan, Johnny P and Ruairi. Eoin’s decision to split the panels in Luxembourg at the start of the year contributed. The fact we (unfortunately) only had one team in Guernsey contributed. Going together to The Oak for food after training contributed. Guys sharing houses, living on the same street and generally looking out for each other contributed. All those things have helped created a ‘one team’ spirit, bereft of division.

Facebook has been jammed with messages of congrats from Belgium’s current and former players. They logged in everywhere from Brussels to Haiti to Holland to Poland to Oz. The lads deserve every bit of it.

As I said at the beginning, players may have come and gone through the team but the spirit never left. On Saturday, the dog had its day.

Panels Finalised

And so the last ball has been kicked in anger at training in 2011. We wrapped things up with a 7 v 8 match out on Toyota’s shortened soccer pitch today. With the Halloween parties going on all weekend, it was important to have one session to reset the minds before the remainder of us depart for home in the coming days.

The last three sessions highlighted a lot of the improvements we have made in the last few months. Our patience on the ball is much better, our foul count is under control and the communication has improved. On Saturday, Griff was pulling the strings, instructing guys about positioning. Giller has taken a lot of ownership as well and his talk has become more specific and instructive.

Following today’s session, we issued the panels by e-mail. This is a somewhat impersonal way of informing the group but it’s the only way you can ensure everyone gets the same communication. At home, you can get the entire panel together much more easily but here there are always lads here missing for work or personal reasons.

In the past we’ve never had any major fallouts over selection and that is because the lads understand the difficulties selecting panels. There is no one formula to do it. Training attendance, skill level, strength, speed, power, reading the game – they all play their part and in the end you just have to try to be fair to everyone and get the right mix.

Conan and myself tease it out over a few discussions and as Colin Byrne is injured, I ran a few things by him. He was putting the case forward for a couple of guys and there sure is a case. The counter to that is who do you drop? This was a particularly tough group to split and he recognised that.

The last three sessions threw up some dilemmas. Guys who had been underperforming pulled performances out of the bag to catapult themselves back into contention. Others were going very well but just simply timed their run too late in the year and faced too much traffic ahead of them for their position.

One of the toughest calls was Eoin Sheanon. He returned to Ireland in July but we asked him to put in a weekend transfer so we had him as an option. We have never brought in weekend transfers on the Championship panel but saw his case a little differently. He was with us since 2008 and was one of the top forwards in the competition, as well as managing the team in the first half of this year. His last game was in Lux when he bust his shoulder and we wanted him to get a proper opportunity for a send off.

However, the lads just kept on knocking over the last few sessions and we couldn’t deny them. I’ve been out with some on extra sessions, seen more in the gym working away. You can’t turn your back on that or they will not sustain that effort. It’s not just about Saturday, it’s about setting standards for the future too.

The temperature in the camp is just about right ahead of the weekend. So far this year we have got what we deserved. We weren’t far away in the last two tournaments but there was a gap that needed bridging.

We’ve worked very hard to close that gap and I’m certainly relishing the challenges we face at the weekend.

D Day Looms

Our last training weekend of the season and it started with many question marks remaining over the Championship and Shield panels. On Friday night we were out in the BSB focussing mostly on kicking, shooting and some conditioned games. On Saturday we moved to a grass pitch in Brussels centre and played a full pitch match.

Going into the weekend, I had a fair idea of how I thought the panels would shape up but myself and Conan had yet to sit down and go through them. However, after the back to back sessions, a few more lads clawed their way back into contention and that makes the decisions a little less straight forward.

Since the beginning of the year when Conan and Eoin split the panels in Lux, the door has remained open for guys to stake a claim for a place on the Championship team. The result is that we now have a much larger array of options in each position and have been able to cope with the loss of a hoard of players.

Within today or tomorrow, we will finalise everything and the lads will be waiting eagerly for the news. There is a healthy tension there at the moment and it was needed heading into the weekend. Tom Lane, back from his global travels, was down at the match yesterday and he commented how there was a noticeable edge to the game.

We played four twelve minute quarters and by the final quarter many of the issues had been ironed out. Our foul count has dropped massively in the last week and that would be one of the main improvements we are looking for in Limerick. Our defensive set-up is solid so we will be hard to score against but we must make sure we don’t cough up innocuous frees and give teams an easy way into the game.

The tension I mentioned was visible right through the group over the last week both on and off the pitch. It brought the best out of the majority of fellas and we have a much more tuned group than we would have had a couple of weeks ago or even before either of the last two tournaments.

The immediate priority now is to get the panels named and not have that tension burn up energy unnecessarily. Many of the team have already left for Ireland and others will go in the coming days so we will have one final run out on Tuesday evening and leave it at that.

The roadwork is done and I'm confident that when the lights go on next Saturday, we'll have two teams primed for action.

Big Week

It’s the biggest week of the season for everyone. We will train Tuesday, Friday and hopefully have a full pitch match on Saturday. With a public holiday next week, a lot of the lads have planned in a couple of days at home prior to Limerick. It will be the last chance for many to stake their claim for a place on the Championship panel so that should bring an extra edge to things.

The clutter for places has reduced a little with the news that both Johnny O and Hudson have been ruled out due to work commitments. On top of that, we lost Collie Byrne to a recurrence of a calf injury last Friday night and the Bull will be in Haiti building houses.

Despite this, we have enough lads available to give myself and Conan selection headaches. We’ve options on each line of the pitch and separating guys won’t be easy, especially as so many have stepped up at recent tournaments. The fact the tournament is in Ireland will mean that family and friends will be in attendance and that is driving everyone on that little bit more.

By Saturday evening, everything will be a little clearer but we will probably still hold back on naming the panel until the middle of next week as you are guaranteed someone will have to pull out for one reason or another.

Whichever way it turn out, we should be competitive in both competitions. In the previous two rounds of the Championship, we couldn’t complain too much about the manner of our exits but we still left knowing we were only a score or two off the pace.

The Shield team has only had one outing and were eliminated by a shoot out in Leuven. Looking at the potential panel that will be on display, there is serious potential to cause a shock or two. They will face some heavy hitters with Amsterdam leading the charge. Our neighbours travel with one hand very tightly gripped on the cup but the likes of Frankfurt will be hell-bent on spoiling the party.

So plenty to focus the minds this week. Five sessions and counting.

Friday Frustrations

Training took a bit of a dip Friday night and it turned out to be our least satisfactory session in a while. In fairness, we have very few lads who turn up to go through the motions so we were all a bit pissed off leaving the BSB last night.

There was a combination of factors which contributed to it. After the warm-up, Conan put us through a series of kicking drills and the quality of the kicking was cat. Even after a stoppage to point this out, we continued on a downward curve. Concentration levels looked poor and I’m not sure was it the fact everyone was at the end of a working week or what.

Numbers had also surged and that put off the planning a little. Conan planned for the usual number and he always sets out all the drills at the start of the session to ensure we can have a smooth and quick transition between exercises. When numbers are far higher than expected, it means groups are bigger and that impacts the amount of time each player gets on the ball, so the players aren’t happy.

I faced the same problem with my shooting drills. The ball to player ratio was far from optimal so that led to too much delay for each player. I’d also set the drill up to favour the right footed player which displeased renowned drill wrecker Darragh Cotter. I’m all for feedback but I didn’t take kindly to the tone of his so we had a sharp exchange. He then proceeded to try and kick every ball over the fence when it was his go!! I was nearly climbing up it to stop him from getting satisfaction from succeeding in his goal.

Despite there being aspects of myself and Conan’s planning which could have been sharper, the player still has no excuse for not executing the majority of the drills properly and lads should make sure that when they are in play on an exercise that they are fully concentrated. There was a fleeting return of the ‘excuses mentality’ on Friday which needs to disappear fast. I don’t think that will be an issue though.

The session did finish well with a tough last ten minutes of running. Paddy Cassidy was telling me a couple of months ago that his club used to always finish with a hard running drill and called that part of the session, ‘the final ten’. He told me it was to try and create a mentality to finish the game with one final burst (correct me if I’m wrong Paddy). I passed this on to Conan and he has brought it into the sessions. I find it good as you are hanging at the end of the session, which is just what you want. Special mention this week goes to Paul Gavin who seems to have a rocket up his ass. The man is displaying fitness and speed prowess that he has previously kept fairly well hidden.

We headed back to Schuman afterwards and popped into the Coolock for a change of scene. There is a good buzz with the lads at the moment so the banter over a few pints is always enjoyable. Apparently Griff knew we were in there but he still rocked up with a bird on his arm. He looked sheepish enough as he shuffled by and then ignored us for the night.

Another lad giving the cold shoulder was John Van Pool, FC Irlande’s premier net minder. John, from Oklahoma goes by JVP when his name is mentioned in written form but I’m sure from the way he carries on that he’d rather ‘MVP’! He was awkwardly shifting from one bird to another, looking like all his planning had had some unfortunate collision.

We picked up a couple of new players in recent weeks, most notably Diarmuid Lynch from Cork and Cillian O’Donghue (from Cork originally, but moved to Meath when he was eight). Both are capable footballers and also very good trainers. We needed the influx of a couple of guys like that and it helps too that they have integrated seamlessly.

Brussels being Brussels, there is rarely such thing as a couple of quiet pints. Johnny P, Keary, Mul and Darragh all disappeared around midnight and I thought they’d headed for home but apparently they ditched us for a party that Hagan had an ‘in’ for.

Curiosity pricked, we got the phones out to see what the story was. Naturally the questioning revolved around the ladies at the party. Mul, the only single one amongst the lads, tried hard to put us off the scent but the others suggested it might be worth the trip. Off we went and with us went any chance of a productive Saturday.

The main comment I remember from an otherwise hazy enough night was one Ger made about me losing some sprints during the week. I was conscious of this in my head but it’s good for someone to mention it to you as it gives you a jolt to up the ante.

Hopefully the few pints will have washed away the malaise from Friday and everyone will be in much better form come Tuesday.

City of Sports Welcomes Euro G.A.A.

The season end is approaching quickly and we’ve entered the final phase of training. This year, as part of Limerick being the European City of Sport, the final round of the Pan-European Championship & Shield will be hosted by UL.

We avoided the usual post-tournament dip last week and lads showed great eagerness to get straight back to work after Guernsey. The only hiccup was Friday night. I was back in Ireland but Conan was keeping me in the loop. The above picture was the scene at the appointed start time. Apparently there are three lads somewhere in the dark.

Everyone eventually arrived, citing a bomb scare for the delay. This is the second time they’ve pulled this one. The last time I bit my tongue and went home to check the internet and found nothing about it. I’m not sure I’d have been so gullible this time.

Conan is back on board full-time with the training. When he is ‘in’, you can barely buy five minutes of time at training to do stuff!! The chemistry has the right balance now though as we have two trainers hungry to take sessions and that should benefit all. Looking further ahead, it may also solve any potential trainer issues next year.

We have six sessions left and its clear guys are up for the last trip of the year. Darragh is back after a shoulder injury and looked like a man feeling the heat for his place after Olof and Griff’s performances in Guernsey. I thought he’d drifted into the periphery in training before he got injured but he was much more engaged on Tuesday night.

Practically all the regular trainers have got a shot on the Championship panel this year and it leaves us with a lot of options . We finished third in both the last two tournaments using over twenty players. The perception would have been that the team for the Belgian tournament was stronger than the one for Guernsey. However, with both groups achieving the same placings, it knocks that idea on its head a bit. There is great competition and the key thing in two weeks time will be getting the blend right to improve on the previous results.

The Championship has been the most competitive since we started playing in 2008. The amount of games which have been won by a point in the last two tournaments is unreal. The Hague and Guernsey have been a step ahead but ourselves and Lux have been there or there abouts. Jersey have been slightly further back while it’s difficult to judge where Stockholm are at. They missed the Guernsey tournament and were pitted in a tough group in Belgium against The Hague and Guernsey. Amazingly, we’ve yet to play them since they joined the ‘circuit’ so we’d look forward to the challenge of testing ourselves against them.

So, three sessions left in the British School and hopefully we will never have to return there again. It’s a pain in the ass to get to and the surface wrecks havoc on the body. In the week preceding Limerick, we move back to the VUB who have just laid a new astro. It will ensure we start the final week of the season on a good note.

Kinsale - County Intermediate Football Champions 2011

County Intermediate Champions 2011. I texted Barry Gray on Sunday evening and when he replied he tried to soften the blow of missing it by inserting ‘probably’, when telling me it was one of the best days. When you haven’t won an adult title since 1932, there’s no need to understate anything.

I made it back from Guernsey in time to tune in to the commentary and tweets online. I wasn’t alone in cyber world. Conor was in a McDonalds in Wellington. Paul Hurley was tuned in from Thailand whilst Leary and others were in on it too.

From the moment Jeremy broke his leg early in the first half, the lads never looked back and they controlled the game. Wardy, who didn’t even make the panel for the semi, came on and kicked two points. David Coughlan had the game of his life. But the crucial score, a second half goal, came from the boot of Barry Gray - goal poacher extraordinaire. Twelve years on from his goal scoring debut against Courcies, he raised the green flag again on the club’s biggest day.

The victory is an incredible achievement. The team has mixed two generations of players. Both were talented but neither were what you would call a ‘golden generation’. Plenty of work needed to be done to bring this team together to achieve what they did last Sunday.

Gearoid gets a bulk of the credit. The papers were full of praise for the team’s style of play and their usage of the panel. ‘Modern management’ came up more than once. Part of that management was getting Brian Murphy more involved and getting Ollie Cahill and Tony Griffen fully on board. He’d say himself that their input gave fresh impetus to the whole thing.

They won a county with what may be considered by some as ‘unfashionable’ players. Throughout the year, the team was doubted and even afterwards some people unbelievably tried to play down the achievement.

Still, the majority drowned out the minority and the town was buzzing all week by the sound of it. The Primary Schools were visited on Monday and the session looked like it continued all week.

I’d be in touch with Gearoid on practically a daily basis and you can’t imagine the amount of work and thinking that goes in behind the scenes. Getting a group of players fully focused in a town like Kinsale is a very difficult task. There were times when I’d say he was ready to walk but he stuck with them and he showed unreal resilience to keep believing in his ways, in the face of some fairly persistent criticism.

Bolster was home from the States and saw the team play for the first time since last summer. He said the transformation was incredible. He commented about how composed and confident they were, especially in defence. He said the work rate was incredible. The work in progress became the finished product.

There is no doubt that it’s a killer to miss out on last Sunday but such is life. If I was only here a year or two, the pain would be greater. The longer you are away the more you can accept that you’ve just become an interested spectator. Well, I say that but I barely mean it.

It will be some Dinner Dance when you considered the amount of All-Irelands, Munster Championships and Sigersons that came back to the club this year. To put the final bit of icing on the cake, Brian Coughlan finished a memorable year by winning a Senior Football Championship medal with UCC today. 2011 will live long in the memory. Hopefully it won’t remain a reference point the way in which 1932 did. At least not for so long.

‘Put that in your blog!’

Three years writing the blog and I was wondering how long it would be until someone used it to take a swipe at me. It was right out of the Jason McAteer repertoire of gags. I’m not sure why you would even acknowledge to a player that you know about his blog or anything else in a heated exchange. I’ll take it as a compliment. ‘Keep it lit’ they said, you can be sure Saturday’s exchanges with Lux will keep the fire burning in our club. More of that later...

We arrived in Guernsey on Friday evening and were greeted by members of the club who drove us to our hotel. Can’t fault that kind of welcome. Giller rocked up later with the local paper which had an interview with the club’s Chairman, John Payne. He was bullish about their prospects, saying they had assembled their strongest team to date.

Our opening fixture was against Lux. We happened to be on the same flight as them and it was clear they were very focussed, not engaging in any chit chat. They had a more physical approach in Leuven the last day and they weren’t shy on Saturday either. We got the tough start expected.

I have to put my hand up for making a balls of it. I changed the tactics and we were all over the place as a result. Lux upped the ante and we got frustrated with some persisting fouling. The advantage rule is always contentious, more so when you don’t avail of the advantage itself! We tried to adjust things at half-time but we’d totally lost our rhythm and we didn’t deserve any more than the three point defeat. It was a big lesson.

We needed to get back on track urgently and Jersey provided the next opposition. It was a dour and tight encounter, lit up in the first half by a great team goal. I received the ball in defence and played a one two with Liam Walsh before releasing Timmy. He carried as Giller made up the hard yards, arriving in time to fist Timmy’s square pass to the net. Jersey struck back and goaled after a couple of ricochets around our square. In was level until the last play of the game which would find its way to Timmy. He landed a monster winner to put us back on track.

Next up was The Hague. We had our stride back but a couple of early frees from them slowed our progress. The game revealed a serious issue in Saturday’s panel; we hadn’t one recognised forward in the travelling party. None of the lads would have been forwards when they played at home and we lacked the necessary cutting to claw back The Hague’s three point half time lead. Timmy did flash a shot across the goal in the second half and if that had rippled the net we may have muscled our way back in. As it happened, we went down by five points.

Our last game was against Guernsey and we made a couple of switches to freshen things up. Starting well and playing with a very strong wind, they took the lead and were then awarded a penalty. Up came their keeper and as I was in goal I thought it would be helpful to ask him what he was going to do with it. He told me but I was still a few inches away as it whizzed past.

We’d goal soon after through Ryano (i think!) so trailed by only a point at the break. We threw caution to the strong wind that was now at our backs and went for bust. There was a melee around the goalmouth and we were awarded a penalty. I was on duty for the day so up I went.

After initiating the banter with their keeper before his penalty, he now wanted to know where I’d put it. I didn’t respond initially but then he goaded me! I told him left, he asked which left, I clarified and then stepped back. The goals on the second pitch were particularly narrow, something between an U-12 goal and full sized one so it required more power then I’d normally like to use. He was close but not close enough.

As the clock ticked down, we trailed by two and we were awarded another penalty. Up I went again to try and win it with one of the last kicks. There was no banter on this occasion. I went left and high again but the keeper somehow reached it. We’d get one back with the next play but not enough to win it.

Guernsey were through to the final and on the other pitch, The Hague had launched a second half comeback to pip Lux to the final by a point.

Our day would finish with a 3rd/4th place playoff against Lux. Often these games can be a bit of a washout but we had plenty of motivation. We didn’t match them physically in the first game. Crusher had sustained a nasty shoulder injury in a challenge, Timmy received a late blow that caught him in the mid-section and some of the rest of us felt the brunt of some mistimed tackles. We knew we needed to step up.

The icing on the pre-match speech was a comment made as we had lined up a free in the first game. A Lux player roared, ‘We don’t want to lose to a shit team’. I don’t understand such comments. It makes virtually no difference to your own team’s performance but when the opposition hear it, they will bank that for years and the very mention of the incident will fire us up from now on.

We were going to give as good as we got which made for a tetchy encounter. It was fairly contained until half-time but then one of their players head-butted Griff as we walked off at the interval. That led to what you might call a ‘coming together’ of both teams and a frank exchange of views which took some time to sort out. Plenty of blogging advice was offered!

It turns out they were incensed by an incident which preceded half-time where Griff had put a shoulder into one of their lads. It occurred as Lux were about to take a free from the wrong spot and Griff pointed that out to their player. No need to repeat the response from the player but he probably misjudged that Griff would face down the threat so quickly.

As the half-time chit chat was broken up by the ref, one of them reminded me that this was Championship. So it is and you should be able to take it if you give it. They continued to give as Crusher was pinned down by his man off the ball but we kept our cool.

The half-time score of 0-0 to 0-1 in our favour gave a good indication of the type of game it was. It remained tight through the second half, despite one of their subs coming on and telling Ross he would kick six points off him. They would score one and Paddy would slot two frees over to give us a 0-5 to 0-1 victory. I was fairly wound up before and during the game. I hadn’t felt like that in a while but when I have that feeling my game lifts a level or two.

Lux had performed well during the day so it was good to reverse the earlier result. It’s brought a new edge to our rivalry with them and you need that. Nothing boiled over but it brought an intensity to proceedings and we always play our best football in those conditions. Hands were shaken at the final whistle but it was clear minds have already turned to our next encounter.

Reflecting on the overall day, we can’t feel too badly about the performance. We had 14 players travelling. Only 4 of those lads made the Championship panel last year. All the rest, except Liam Kelly, were here last year and playing Shield. Liam arrived a month ago and was a sub on the Shield team the last day. It’s a big step-up to make en masse but no-one was found wanting.

To battle to third in such a tough competition and be competitive was satisfying in that context. However, as I said to the lads after, we can’t always be content by finishing 3rd. We understand where we are on the learning curve but we can’t forget that the goal is to continue to improve and contest finals, sooner rather than later.

In fairness, everyone played to their max but three stood out. At the back, Crusher was immense. He could barely move his shoulder Sunday morning but got up and down the pitch all day, topping it all with a left footed goal.

Griff, playing his first Championship round, put in a massive performance. He’s the type of guy we need; big, strong and ferociously committed on the pitch. I’ve been reluctantly on his case at training to sharpen up his ball skills and tackling. I say reluctantly because he always looks back at you as if he will kill you.

The third player I’d pick out is Timmy. He missed six weeks training from mid-July to the end of August. When he returned, I was on his back more than most because I knew he was going to be a key man and we needed him flying fit. He barely missed training since and has worked his balls off. He was magnificent on Saturday, showing bravely time and time again for ball whilst leading the attack.

So now we all turn towards Limerick. Guernsey beat The Hague by a point in the final and as far as I know it means we still have a mathematical chance of winning the Championship. Considering the competitive nature of this year’s competition, anything is possible. We go back to work Tuesday.

Belief The Only Barrier

Trains, planes, cars and boats are all on stand-by for our imminent departure to Guernsey. It's the trip we dreaded all year but now that it is upon us, we are looking forward to the adventure. More importantly, we are eager to take our chance to improve on our showing in the last tournament.

The team is much changed from Leuven. Out go Brendan Lynch, Darragh Cotter, Ciaran Hudson, Paul Gavin, Diarmuid Laffan, Diarmuid Lynch and James O'Dowd; all unavailable. In come Shane Ryan, Ger McMahon, Shane Griffen, Olof Gill, Johnny Phelan, Conchur de Barra and Liam Walsh.

In past years, our A and B teams pursued different styles of play. You could accuse the A team of having a more individual focus whereas the B team was more team focused. In the last couple of months we have set out one template for both teams. It was done so we could counter the situation which presents itself this weekend. With our approach of the last couple of years, we would be cannon fodder this weekend had we not sorted it out.

The transition process between the two teams can now be made much quicker and the lads coming up are going well. Bull has missed a month with injury but his secondment in Toronto over the last twelve months seems to have knocked some of the edges off his game. He looks more composed on the ball and in the tackle.

Ger McMahon has been the big plus of recent weeks. He returned in March after 2.5yrs in Japan. The ramp-up was painful enough for him as he got back in shape. In Maastricht he was good and in Leuven he repeated the performance. At last Tuesday night's training session, he looked powerful and sure of himself. He plays to the plan as well as anyone which makes him a big asset.

Shane Ryan is serving his goalkeeping apprenticeship currently. So far so good and he should gain confidence from the settled defence in front of him.

Unfancied teams are filling the sports pages these days. Carrigtwoill won the Cork SHC for the first time in 94 years last weekend. They were 100/1 at the start of the year and there was no noticeable revolution along the way, just a very quick evolution under a new system and management team. Their hero was Seanie Farrell. Seanie was a star in the 90's winning Minor & U-21 titles with Cork and capping it all with an All-Ireland Senior in 1999.

For an assortment of reasons, Seanie's career never progressed and he mixed some seriously productive spells in his club's jersey with some less than impressive ones. His star has been falling and at the start of this year he was playing Junior B. On Sunday, he came off the bench for his first appearance with the Senior team this year and he fired over the winning score.

If anyone is looking for a bit of inspiration, there is no shortage of it these days. Seanie and Carrigtwoill's story shows the endless possibilities in sport. From tales like that, we should derive the necessary belief that we can still regain the Pan-Euro Championship this year. Impossible is nothing....as the slogan goes....

2001 – Where are they now?

A check-in with the starting team of 2001.

1. John O'Connell

John would have been better known as a wing forward but successive injuries to Andy Lynch led to his conversion to keeper. It proved a successful move as he was a very steady head between the sticks. John's personality wouldn’t do panic and that made him a great guy to play in front of.

Where is he now? In recent years he has stepped into the breach when the team has been stuck but by and large he is now retired.

2. Michael O'Sullivan

2001 was Mick Sull's breakthrough season. I think it was the South-East semi-final against Shamrocks when he broke into team and he hasn’t been out since. He had a tough task that day, marking Kevin O'Sullivan in a two man full forward line but acquitted himself well. Despite spending six or seven years in Dublin, he continued to be a fixture in the team as well as captain for a period. He has also been a regular on the Carrigdhoun Senior Football team for years.

Where is he now? Pretty much where he was then; playing in the full back line.

3. Lyndon Kiely

One of the most talented footballers to come out of Kinsale. Couple his talent with his powerful frame and you get a fairly devastating full back. He was on a Cork Minor team who were beaten by Kerry but went on to win an All-Ireland with the Cork Juniors in 2000. He also put in a more than respectable performance marking The Gooch in the first series of The Underdogs.

He looked to be gone off the scene this year after injuries had caught up with him. However, he reappeared at the quarter final stage at full forward and has been a steadying influence since. Surrounded by young players, his presence is important to ensure they don't get bullied by more seasoned opposition.

Where is he now? Full forward

4. Dave Barrett

I'm not sure of the logic of playing me, a right footer, in the left corner and Mick Sull in the right corner with his left foot. That was the way we lined up in 2001. It was something of a 'comeback' year for me. I'd broken onto the team as a minor in 1999 but had been badly exposed in the opening exchanges of the South-East final that year.

I survived until full-time but the memory had lodged in the selectors minds. 2000 proved very frustrating as I started and finished every single league and challenge game. I was on the bench for the first round of the Championship against Carrigaline. I started and did well at wing back against Shamrocks in the next round before being dropped for the semi against Crosshaven.

A late cameo wasn't enough to earn a starting place against Courcies in the final and maybe it was just as well as it was one of the most miserable performances we delivered in the last ten years. We had new management in 2001 and they placed all their faith in the younger players and I’d benefit from that.

I started on Kieran Daly in the 2001 final but moved to wing-back when they brought him out as a third midfielder. I put in a good shift on Jason Whooley but it was a massive step up. They were one of the fittest and strongest teams I ever faced and as I mentioned previously, they were a Senior team playing Junior. No doubt about it.

5. Jeremy Keohane

He too was breaking through in 1999. Funnily enough, he would benefit most from my struggles in the '99 final as we switched corners and he went on to win man of the match!! Powerful like Lyndon and with a great recognition of his strengths. He would rarely make a wrong decision. A human wrecking ball. In those days he would have been a very committed player but in years after he would become distracted and disinterested.

Where is he now? The lads have him back and fully focused this campaign and he is a lead figure in the defence, lining out at centre back.

6. Ricky O'Hanlon

Ricky was a year older than me and a hugely talented underage player, captaining our Minor team in 1998. How he never even got a sniff of playing Cork Minor shows up everything that was wrong with the Cork Minor set up back then. Ricky would go on to join Lyndon on The Underdogs but it was at club level he would make the biggest impact. Better known as a forward, Ricky was converted to play centre back in 2001.

His long clearances suited our game plan and he adjusted remarkably well to the position. He was immense that year. In future years he would revert to a role in the forwards where he would get us out of jail more than once, 2005 against Ballinhassig being the one that springs to mind. Also became a regular for Carrigdhoun Seniors.

Where is he now? He wouldn't say he is retired yet but he has been working in London for the last six years so he's pretty much in the same boat as me.

7. Kenny O'Regan

As I get further through the team I get reminded more and more what a steely defence we had. Kenny is like an iron bar, with a set of fists which did a fair bit of damage in the boxing ring. He spent some of his childhood in the States and that was probably why he was in his best buddy Lyndon's shadow as an underage player. 2001 was his year though. Anyone who was in Drimoleague for the semi against Adrigole would remember his match winning goal. It was a trademark run from wing back and a rocket finish from an unattractive angle.

Kenny flirted with the U-21 panel in 2000 but in the end he settled for winning an All-Ireland Junior medal alongside Lyndon that year. Carrigaline would have been our big underage rivals around that time and Nicholas Murphy was their star. They may have followed different paths since but you can be sure Nicholas never forgot their match ups. Kenny became a regular Cork Junior and Carrighdhoun Senior.

Where is he now? Still playing football but unfortnautely for Kinsale, in Boston.

8. Gearoid Condon

He was part of one of the most successful underage teams Kinsale has produced. My brother John was also on those teams. The age gap was four years and I can remember being in awe of them as we travelled around the County following their success. Gearoid would have been 24 in 2001 but he was pretty much the only survivor from that generation of players. What a shame.

He was captain in 2001 and it was that summer in which we became good buddies. He didn't look like an enforcer but on a team with so many young players, he was the one who would do the sorting out if an opposition player was acting the maggot. I can remember Blondie (former Kinsale G.A.A. hero) saying he should pack up his boots and sell them at Bolands Corner. He was one of those players that only a teammate would truly appreciate. Selfless, with a great brain. He'd come up against more talented players but would put a lot of thought into how to counter them and more often than not he would be a match for any of them.

Where is he now? Playing Junior and managing the Intermediates on Sunday. In his playing days, Blondie was one of his detractors. Nowadays, he has many many more.

However, without bias, I would say he is one of the main reasons the team in contesting Sunday's final.

9. William Cummins

Son of the famous Cork dual star Ray Cummins (who was a selector that year). That may be the toughest cross to bear. William was a Cork Minor with Lyndon and a schools star with Criost Ri. When he finished school in 1998 he went up to The Curragh to become a pilot and from then on, it became an awful chore for him to get released for matches and training. I remember playing Dohenys in 2000 in the U-21 County. He raced down the night of the game but hadn't been released in time and I can still see him standing, looking on from the wrong side of the fence.

2001 would be his final year with us but he remains one of the most stylish players we have had. That was his best year.

Where is he now? Still in The Curragh with the army. As far as I know his football & hurling days are at an end.

10. Colm McCarthy

One of the most diligent trainers I ever came across. Sometimes he probably over trained. Unbelievable work rate and has shown great versatility over the years, playing in virtually every line of the pitch. Has juggled working in Dublin with reinventing himself as a back (where he started out actually) this year and claiming a starting berth. Along the way he played with Carrighdhoun Seniors and that spot was secured after his performances in 2001.

Where is he now? Most likely manning one of the defensive berths on Sunday.

11. Conor O’Brien

What a talent. I’ve marked my share of decent forwards but you’d rarely find one with the full package. Barry Gray had blistering pace. Gerry Murphy was mercurial. Gavin Farrissey had a great brain. And they are just the lads I’d mark in training. Colm O'Neill is the natural stand out when I consider the opponents from other teams. I remember saying after the 2005 County QF that I didn't think he had the pace to play Cork Senior (how wrong I was!). O'Neill was the guy most like Conor to mark.

Conor didn't have blistering pace but countered any shortcoming in that area with his strength. You might arrive at the ball around the same time as him but he could muscle you out of it. Four years in UL coupled with a few more in Dublin probably held his progress back. He should have been a Cork Junior and Carrigdhoun Senior at least.

In 2001, his connection with Gerry Murphy was a joy to watch. It was as if Gerry had found the heir to his thrown and their link-up play was unrivalled. In the first half of the 2001 final he went desperately close to getting a goal before the interval. That would have sent us in ahead. It may not have been enough but who knows.

Where is he now? After delivering a master class in the 2009 QF against Fermoy, he packed his bags and headed for Oz. At the time of writing, he is somewhere in a camper van in New Zealand. Don't be surprised if you see him on the edge of the square next year.

12. Brian O'Connell

Brian joined us late in 2000 and was a magnificent addition. He had won a Sigerson with Queens and had soaked up everything he was taught. He had all the right habits, on and off the pitch. Brian was a mature footballer, less of a rough diamond that any of the rest of us.

He was also very versatile. In 2001 he lined out at wing forward but in 2005 he would man the centre back spot. He's one of the guys I most enjoyed playing with. Coolness personified and tidy off both feet. I learned a lot from him.

Where is he now? New Zealand. And I'm pleased to say that after becoming a bit disillusioned with football in his last few years in Kinsale, he's back playing down there.

13. Noel O'Sullivan

Noel was the big benefactor from Gavin Farrisseys injury in the quarter final against Mitchelstown and earned his stripes in the semi against Adrigole with a goal.
He was a jack of all trades and as the team developed that cost him. Knee injuries didn't help but he recovered to play his part in 2001.

Where is he now? Retired from football and in goal for the Hurlers.

14. Fergal O'Hanlon

'Horse' as he was known. I'm not sure if it was because when he was younger he wanted to be a jockey or if it was because he grew into a giant of a man.

Our tactics then were very simple. Let the ball in long to horse and the rest would play off him. When he blew hot, he could destroy anyone such was his power and big hoof. Nightmare for a small man at training like me to mark.

Where is he now? Not quite retired but barely active last I heard.

15. Gerry Murphy

Kerryman. Captained Laune Rangers to the All-Ireland Senior club in 1996. We never got to the bottom of his Kerry career but he was there or there abouts. Gerry suffered badly with back and knee injuries and that is regularly cited as the reason he didn't cement a place on the Kerry team.

He was still an awesome force when he joined us in 1999 and won me my medal that year. 40 yards out, into the wind in Riverstick to give us the lead for the first time in the last minute.

Him being corner forward and me being corner back meant that I got to know him pretty well. It was a great challenge to mark him. Some nights you'd go home and sit on the couch with your head in your hands wondering why you even bother trying to mark him. Other nights you'd be buzzing because you just broke even. What a talent and he was immense in 2001.

Where is he now? Owns The Greyhound Bar in Kinsale. Trained us in the mid 00's and is still on hand to give advice when required.

There were many more lads who played a role that year but these were the men who started the final. Five lads remain, four playing - not bad ten years on. Five more emigrated and the rest are retired.

Date With Destiny

Kinsale Intermediate Footballers contest their first County Final since 2001 this coming Sunday. Their opponents will be Beara men Castletownbere.

Since we went up in 2006, the team has struggled to make an serious impression and has had to fight off a few relegation battles along the way. Two years ago they did win promotion from Division 4 and last year they consolidated in Division 3. The best Championship runs had brought them to quarter finals in 2006 and 2009, losing to Castletownbere and Fermoy respectively.

With such a record it is difficult to build on underage success and keep the momentum. You are out of the Championship mid-Summer but must keep ticking over to complete the league. As everyone who plays G.A.A. knows, getting motivated to train for league games doesn't quite fit in with the psyche.

That league promotion in 2009 wasn't without significance. It showed there was promise in the young lads coming through. They'd won a couple of Minors and an U-21 South-East so the pedigree was confirmed. Still, they needed to transfer that success to Intermediate Championship. The longer the gap is between those underage successes and adult success, the more and more that momentum diminishes.

In that sense, this was a make or break year in my opinion. Gearoid Condon has been involved with much of this group for the last ten years, either as player or coach. He was captain in 2001 and led those recent underage teams to the successes I mentioned.

When he took over the Intermediates a couple of years ago he had a clear plan about what he wanted to do and how he wanted to develop the group. He put a big emphasis on the Junior set-up because he knew he would need a big panel and to get that, guys would need plenty of opportunity to play. And not just play for the Juniors. Even previously 'unfashionable' players would be brought into the Intermediate set-up and be given a shot. Commitment was rewarded and lads responded.

That plan I mentioned is pretty much on track. He said to a few of us at the beginning of the year that if the team could get to the quarter-final, anything could happen. Once there, momentum can really kick in as the games come thick and fast. And that's how it has unfolded. A replay win against Youghal was followed up with a convincing victory over pre-Championship favourites Kildorerry in the semi. Now the seasoned Castletownbere stand in their way.

What has been most notable about the campaign is how the team has evolved. The selectors haven't been afraid to make bold decisions, dropping some guys and bringing more in from the cold. Some outside the camp have been critical of some of the players chosen and decisions made but the management have been vindicated so far.

I'm don’t know where Kinsale were in the bookies rankings at the start of the year but I'm sure it was somewhere in the bottom third of contenders. On Sunday they will again be underdogs but that won't bother them. They've been upsetting the odds all year.

The position they are in ahead of Sunday contrasts starkly with our last County final in 2001. Then we lined up against Ilen Rovers who were really a Senior team playing Junior. They would prove that when breezing through the Intermediate ranks and contesting a County Senior final soon after. Their full forward line of Kieran Daly, Brian & Kevin O'Sullivan were all around the Cork Senior team at that time. Outside them, Pat Connolly and Jason Whooley were no strangers to the National League. Ed & John Sheehy were Cork Juniors as was Diarmuid Duggan who would progress to Senior level along with John Wycherley. And that's before we mention midfielder Fachtna Collins, another Cork Senior. There were a few more with Cork Minor and U-21 experience in their ranks. It was an ominous task.

In 1999, they had put up a cricket score against us in the County semi. It was an absolute embarrassment. Our players were either too young or too old at that time. By 2001 we were a hardened team having come through some massive battles. Two stand out for me, against our most bitter local rivals, Courcey Rovers.

Courcies and ourselves are separated by the Bandon River. Most of the lads went to school together and the rivalry is intense to say the least. The build up to these games is unreal, with everyone in the town wanting to talk about it.

The first game was in 1999 in the South-East semi-final, my Championship debut. They had beaten us after a replay in the 1997 final. It was one of the first Championship games I remember attending. I wouldn’t forget it though. At one stage, with the ball down the other end of the field, everyone’s attention was drawn to an incident away from play. There were two Courcies sprawled out on the ground and a fairly guilty looking Kinsale man standing in between. He’d get the line but that wasn’t the end of the shenanigans. There would be more rows and punches thrown by both players and mentors. Wild west stuff.

The ’99 game was played in Innishannon’s town pitch, a great venue for a game. There’s a big bank on one side of the pitch where the crowd gathers and you have to pass through them on the way down to the pitch. It never failed to get heart pounding.

Anyway, they started the stronger and had a penalty just before half-time which went over the bar to give them a five point lead. We had a fierce young team with a host of the previous year’s minors and the ’99 minor team. We were up to the challenge though and ripped them in the second half. The decisive score came from one of those minors, Barry Gray. I can still remember it. Barry’s pace was unreal and he got in from the bank side of the town end and burst the net. A two fingers to all the doubters. Funnily enough, ten twelve years on, it was a Barry Gray left footed point that rescued a draw in this year’s quarter final against Youghal.

In the 2001 South-East final, we had to dig even deeper against the same opposition. Trailing 0-7 to 0-1 at half-time, our trainer Seamus McCarthy had us believe our first score, just before half-time would change the world and we could kick on and win. We were now within two scores of being level he told us. He instilled great believe in that team and on we went, led by Conor O'Brien and Gerry Murphy, to tear the Courcies apart in the second half.

By the time the County final came around in the first week of December we had huge self belief, despite the task facing us. At half-time we were level against our much heralded opponents and Conor had gone close with a one on one. The pace was frantic though and I can remember being bollicksed in the dressing room at half-time. We couldn't live with them in the second half and they cleared the first hurdle on their journey to Senior ranks.

The task facing this year’s team is more of a hill than a mountain. It's well within their capability to win it. They've met Castletownbere in recent years and even though they haven't beaten them, they've been there or there abouts. Kinsale have improved this year and some of Castletownbere's stalwarths aren't getting any younger with the passing years.

I was comparing the 2001 team and the 2011 team over the weekend but quickly realised it was futile. I haven't seen enough of the existing group to really judge. What we had in 2001 was a battle hardened core. Those local derbies were the making of us. We were a very close group both on and off the pitch. The team was made up of nine of the 1999 U-21 team. Eight of the first nine names on the team sheet were of that ilk. Having a defence who had played that much together was invaluable. Colm McCarthy was the ninth member of that team. However, from that U-21 group, it should be noted that Cian Quigley came on in the 2001 final, Conor O'Brien (sub in 1999) started and Barry Gray played a key role in the campaign. That was some return from an underage team and there was a great bond.

A lot of the current group haven't been through as many testing campaigns and had the same experiences of local derby dogfights. They are getting that experience this year though and have had to stand up for each other on more than one occasion. Just last Thursday they played a crucial league game up in Mallow and stood up to some overly physical play to come away with a win. Then they faced Newmarket last Sunday in a win or bust game and won convincingly. Those are the type of games that harden lads and this year the team has bridged the gap.

Any shortfall in experience in the younger lads will be made up by the older lads. Lyndon, Barry, Colm, Mick Sull, Keohane and Quigley have over twelve years under their belts in the adult grades. The 2001 team never had that kind of profile.

We had our stars in that team, no boubt. Fours lads who either played Cork Minor of Junior. Two Underdogs. Brian O'Connell won a Sigerson with Queens and Gerry Murphy captained a Laune Rangers team to an All-Ireland club.

Compare that to the current team and it's not necessarily so impressive! Rich Sull was on the Cork Senior panel until last summer when he walked by choice. He won an All-Ireland Junior from centre back this year. Captain Derry O'Callaghan was a Cork minor midfielder. Former Cork Minor, Junior and Underdog Lyndon is still around. Niall Mac and Alan Gould have gone as far as All-Ireland finals with Cork Vocs. Brian Coughlan is the forward jewel having won a Sigerson with UCC this year as well as Munster U-21 medals and an All-Ireland Junior. The pretender to his crown is Gearoid Finn, who has scored freely all summer despite his tender age. He is currently with the Cork U-17's, pushing for a Minor spot next year.

I used to think our team was talented but these lads may well trump us. The biggest thing we had in our favour was that bond I mentioned. It's been more difficult for this group because it's required two generations to mesh together. The process has been ongoing over the last few years and now they are ready.

A lot of credit is given to Brian Murphy in making this happen. He’s been involved with Gearoid in the under-age successes and would have trained the likes of Mick Sull, Barry and a few more back in 1998-1999. The combination of the two has worked well in challenging the players to go to the next level.

Sunday is Kinsale’s date with destiny. County winning teams are never forgotten. I only regret now that I didn’t back them in January.