A tale of two personalities

Grit v flair, arrogance v modesty, maverick v conservative, controlled and measured v wild and unpredictable, intense v relaxed, team player v individual, back v forward. I could go on but I wouldn’t dare try and separate these attributes between myself and Eoin Sheanon. However, I know for sure that if I was black, he was almost always white. Nearly every facet of our individual personalities opposed each other. Still, somehow it worked, in the end. The only explanation is because it had to.

Eoin spent a bit of time working at Toyota when he first arrived and landed at my desk one day. It was our first encounter. He wanted to know what the story with the football was. We had only just started the team properly but had played one tournament the previous year, taking a few unmerciful hidings. Displaying all the usual preseason bluster of a Dub, he declared, on the basis of no relevant info, that we should be trying to win the Championship.

And win it we did, with the defining moment coming in the final at the last tournament in Maastricht. Eoin dispossessed his man after a short kick-out and laid off to Collie B to goal. Champions at our first attempt and a highlight in all our GAA careers.

It wasn’t all plain sailing that year and ‘managing’ Eoin had already offered some challenges. In the week up to the Budapest tournament he had no flight booked. He sent me a mail banging on about getting a bus through the night to get down there. In the end we switched Bull’s ticket at the very final hour. He won Player of the Tournament that day.

It was the season of 2009 when we hit one of our rockiest patches. Eoin and a few of the lads missed a fair chunk of the first half of the season as they were on the Euro election campaign trail. He was irritable when he returned and becoming more frustrated with me. I was getting crankier as the season went on and we were on course for a clash.

It came one night in June of that summer. Time keeping, discipline and diligence in doing drills would be high on my list of priorites. Eoin knew well how to push my buttons if he wanted to piss me off. That night he sauntered in late and was dragging his ass in the warm-up. We had a quiet exchange just after I explained the first drill. Eoin, by choice, headed for the gate. We didn’t see him for weeks.

He would have felt I was too demanding of lads in terms of what I expected in terms of commitment. I unapologetically look at this aspect of things through my own lenses and my opinion on what guys need to do still hasn’t changed, even if I do not drive home the message as much as I used to. The initial success of the football was built on creating a set-up that was as organised and as ‘professional’ as possible to make sure we could attract and keep players.

We survived 2009 just about and headed for 2010 a bit deflated. I needed Eoin on the same page as me. The fact that I would ask him to be captain surprised everyone (because of our relationship, not necessarily his credentials). It was the only way I could make sure that we stay somewhat aligned. Ownership and all that.

Team selection remained my responsibility but Eoin would have significant input. He could be a bit of a nightmare in this regard, coming up with some outrageous selections and totally disregarding circumstances like attendance at training! He would become more measured in his approach when he took the reins but at the time I’d regularly get lectured about ‘ruthlessness and conviction’ with regard to selection.

We had another blow-up in the intra club league. He had picked the panels and robbed Munster of the Clare lads and gave me a panel with some lads who weren’t even active. I took things into my own hands and did a bit of recruitment which infuriated everybody, basically only because we were hammering them!!!

Anyway, it came to the Munster Dublin game. I started full-back to mark Sheanon but instead he started midfield and put Johnny O in on me with the clear tactic to try and expose the height difference. Soon Eoin wandered in and I kicked a point after our first exchange. Naturally this pumped me up more and coupled with his growing frustration at his teams’ performance, his pot began to boil.

There were a few stray arms and fists flying about and he took offence to some of my challenges, as did I to his. Then there was a volley of verbal abuse, focussing on me being a cheating so and so and going to extremes to win. It was personal and heated. We shook hands at the end although I took some convincing.

No story would be complete without mentioning the Munich fun bus. The story is not short of airtime at this stage. In short, the lads got lost the morning of the tournament and arrived late after some jolly phone calls explaining their predicament (which had followed on from the previous evening’s calls about lost jerseys etc). I didn’t try and get the game delayed and instead started with a mix of the A and B team. The lads arrived at half-time and I refused to bring any of them on. We lost narrowly.

Mostly our rows have been behind closed behind closed doors but Sheanon went loopers after the game and we had probably our most public and vicious exchanged of words. To this day, that incident with the bus can ruin the night when we are all out together, such is the feelings the incident provokes.

There were plenty of more blow-ups along the way and I often thought about how much more interesting the blog would be if I could have told people about them.

On a one to one level, the majority of our meaningful communication was done by email. We operate in an environment of self-rule where we must respect the input and decisions of lads around the same age. It’s not easy. At home there was always an ‘adult’ who had distance from us. Here our lives are intertwined.

There have been very few lads who would have given either of us direct feedback. Some may think I can’t take it but if you read the blog regularly you should know I am my biggest critic. What I won’t listen to is one liners picked up off the Sunday Game. Sheanon often provided me feedback and I valued it and reflected much of it to my approach. He would be less acknowledging of mine i.e. not respond (it was normally done by email) but I think some of it got through.

His best tournament last year in my opinion was down in Maastricht and I sent him a mail before that, questioning what he had been bringing to our game and what I thought he needed to do. I presume he read it but I can’t be sure if he listened. Much of his game that day reflected those points though. I particularly refer to his increased assists!!

It was time for a change this winter and I handed over to Eoin. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I enjoyed watching his painful transition to management. For three years he thought I gave out too much at training. Now, he was at the helm and you could hear his ranting and raving all around the VUB complex. He probably understands a lot more about me and my approach after his six month in charge. He also asked me to be captain this year, highlighting his acknowledgment that we needed to be on the same page. Not quite keep your friends close and your enemies closer but some similarities to the sentiment!!

To say we were never friends wouldn’t be right though. We were team-mates but we were never overly close off the pitch, despite both of our closest friends being the same people. We’d struggle to hold a conversation or look each other in the eye during normal day to day chats! We wouldn’t exchange non-GAA related texts or emails. However, give us a few pints and we could converse about hurling and football for hours with little or no confrontation. As team-mates the relationship was strong and he was always the go to man when I had possession or needed advice.

Those conflicting personality traits I mentioned at the beginning were no doubt the blocking factor to our relationship being anything more. I’d often say that if we were in the same club at home we probably wouldn’t have got on at all. We’d have been marking each other at training and our style would have conflicted to such an extent that I’m guessing the hostilities displayed in the intra club league would have boiled over more than once or twice. We needed each other more here because we had to take bigger roles than we would have at home.

We shook hands on last Thursday night and he thanked me for everything. I did likewise. It’s been a hell of a journey with him. The impact we’ve had on each other’s existence in Brussels has been significant. We probably wouldn’t have survived this long without the G.A.A. and both of us have made our marks on it in our own way. He’s truly old school Belgium G.A.A. and there is not many of us left; one less now.

I wish him luck with his next challenge. We may not have been best friends but I think I know him reasonably well. He needed to move, especially after the guys he would have spent the most time with have moved on. His head was elsewhere. I wouldn’t rule out him coming back at some stage though. Brussels was a home to him and he probably realised in the last few weeks that, despite so many guys moving on, there is still plenty here for him should he decide to come back some day.