Paddy Heaney's inferiority complex! - Discuss!

[comethekingdom]

http://www.kerryman.ie/sport/gaelic-football/kerrys-false-gods-dont-merit-worship-1744934.html

Kerry's false Gods don't merit worship
In his GAA column in The Irish News last week Paddy Heaney wrote that the present Tyrone team have not got due credit for their All Ireland successes, while Kerry are constantly, but wrongly, elevated to hero status

Wednesday May 20 2009

UTTER superiority: Tyrone have demonstrated that they are a better team than Kerry time and again over the past few years, yet come the start of the Championship each season, pundits, ex-players and journalists still fall for the Kingdom myth and tip them to lift the Sam Maguire

My father once told me that he was actually disappointed when he first got to watch a Kerry team in the flesh. Born in the 1940s, his knowledge of Kerry was gleaned entirely from the radio. Back then, commentators used their considerable poetic licence to paint vivid and lasting portraits. Brainwashed by RTE's hyperbole, my father thought the typical Kerry footballer was about seven foot tall, had shoulders the width of barn doors, and muscles rippling from every sinew. A veritable Kingdom of Cuchullains.

Then in 1958 Derry won the Ulster title and the whole show went to Croke Park to see Jim McKeever and the lads take on Kerry in the All-Ireland semi-final. Watching from the Hogan Stand, my father still recalls the sense of anti-climax when 15 ordinarylooking men took to the field in the green and gold. Patsy McLarnon was as strong, and Hugh Francis Gribben was as broad, and Colm Mulholland was as fit, and Sean O'Connell was as skilful, as any Kerry man. Derry won.

Fifty years ago, the mythology surrounding Kerry footballers was entirely understandable – but there is less excuse for it nowadays. We no longer depend on Micheal O'Hehir. A constant supply of live televised games provides us with empirical evidence to make rational and logic-based decisions, yet the veneration of Kerry's false Gods continues to flourish.

On Sunday, I pored over the various Championship supplements that came with the newspapers and read pundit after pundit, ex-footballer after ex-footballer, and journalist after journalist tipping Kerry to win the Sam Maguire Cup. Why? Why? Why? Let's consider some basic facts. As of last September, Tyrone are the best team in Ireland, and nothing in particular has changed since then.

Moreover, when Tyrone play Kerry in the Championship, Tyrone win. We know this to be true. We've seen it happen three times: in 2003, in 2005 and in 2008. If a horse beat another horse on three successive occasions, the losing horse is never the favourite for the fourth race. Yet this is precisely what happens with Kerry. The counter-argument is that Kerry must win some time and there is no greater motivation than revenge.

But look at it another way. If Tyrone had lost to Kerry in 2003, 2005 and 2008, would a vast

body of opinion be arguing that it's only a matter of time before the Red Hands win? No chance. Tyrone would be universally written off and dismissed as northern chokers. But Kerry are never subjected to this type of harsh appraisal. Why?

Less than 12 months after beating Kerry for the third successive time, Tyrone are already regarded as being second best to Jack O'Connor's side – even before a ball is kicked. When you think about it closely, it's actually quite insulting. For some reason there is a general unwillingness or inability to recognise Tyrone's superiority. Bear in mind that Tyrone should actually be stronger this year. Stephen O'Neill, the former Footballer of the Year, is back. Brian McGuigan has a further year of recuperation under his belt and is hoping to start against Armagh, while Owen Mulligan has enjoyed a good League campaign and has stayed injury-free. Mickey Harte won last year's AllIreland title without having a fully-fit O'Neill, McGuigan or Mulligan.

But in Sunday's newspapers there was little focus on why Tyrone would be better in 2009. It was Jack O'Connor and Tadhg Kennelly and David Moran and blah blah blah? Did these people not see the League game between Kerry and Tyrone in Omagh earlier this year? When Tyrone woke up and decided to compete in the second half, they played Kerry off the park. It was the same old story and the same old Kerry. They scored one point from play after the break.

Anyone who thinks that the analysis and predictions drawn up ahead of this year's Championship will go unnoticed by Tyrone are entirely mistaken.

The wholesale deference towards Kerry will reinforce the notion that northern champions are seen as second-class champions. The painful truth is that the admiration and respect that Ulster gaels have extended towards Kerry has never been reciprocated. When Down refused to roll over and die in the 1960s, it was because they used sneaky tactics. They broke the ball. They didn't play by Kerry's rules. Mick O'Dwyer still struggles to accept that Kerry couldn't beat Down.

Pat Spillane is another Kerry elitist. Spillane told the Sunday Tribune that football is not what it was in his heyday. Isn't it strange how football is always going through a crisis for Pat when an Ulster team are All-Ireland champions? Then again, Pat probably hasn't watched a repeat of the 2005 All-Ireland final. If he ever does get a copy of the tape, and then brings himself to actually watch the team playing in red and white, he will witness one of the most consummate and complete displays ever produced in Croke Park. When Kerry were on top, we in Ulster paid them due homage. But now that Tyrone are the champions, it's not quite the same. Kerry men will concede that Mickey Harte is a great manager, but they'll never agree that Tyrone have a better team. And the begrudgery isn't exclusive to Kerry. It's pretty much nationwide and the media are particularly culpable.

When Kerry win All-Irelands it is because they play champagne football. Ulster teams rarely receive the same eulogies. Armagh "ground" their way to victory against Kerry in 2002. In 2003 Spillane's accusation of puke football was gleefully repeated in the press. The nitpicking that started in the 60s has never stopped. A few days after last year's All-Ireland final, two of the most respected GAA reporters in the country wrote columns criticising the referee's performance. Apparently the failure of Maurice Deegan to penalise systematic fouling contributed to Tyrone's victory.

Somehow there never seems to be the same browbeating and state of the nation concerns when other southern teams are involved. When Meath thumped, kicked, and bullied Tyrone out of Croke Park in 1996 the general consensus was that it was "a man's game". When Kerry win, it's because they have the best footballers in the country. When Tyrone win, it's because of their cunning manager, or their bending of the rules, or their blanket defence, or their tactical fouling.

Sunday's newspapers confirmed all these assumptions. Less than a year after Tyrone's epic victory and the majority of pundits and reporters still reckon Kerry are the best bet to win this year's AllIreland title. The radio age is dead and gone, but Kerry men continue to enjoy the type of iconic status denied to the mere mortals from Tyrone.

In 1958, my father realised that the men in green and gold weren't gifted with any superpowers. Others who've been in Croke Park on countless occasions still seem to be struggling with this basic concept. But then again, as no doubt Mickey Harte will tell his players, there are none so blind as those who will not see.

[armaghniac]

I think you are a bit behind the times in Kerry, we've already discussed this.

[ONeill]

Dana won the Eurovision!

[RMDrive]

Dana won the Eurovision!

LOL. Quality.

[ONeill]

[ziggysego]

What do you do if a Kerryman throws a pin at you?

Run like mad- he's probably got a grenade between his teeth!

Sourced: Fionasplace.com 

[Fear ón Srath Bán]

Paddy's Da:

[Rav67]

Paddy's Da:

I do believe the great man is actually a nephew of Seamus.

[ziggysego]

Paddy's Da:

I do believe the great man is actually a nephew of Seamus.

Paddy's bound to be in this thread tomorrow. Are you?

[ONeill]

We have no prairies
To slice a big sun at evening--
Everywhere the eye concedes to
Encrouching horizon,

Is wooed into the cyclops' eye
Of a tarn. Our unfenced country
Is bog that keeps crusting
Between the sights of the sun.

They've taken the skeleton
Of the Great Irish Elk
Out of the peat, set it up
An astounding crate full of air.

Butter sunk under
More than a hundred years
Was recovered salty and white.
The ground itself is kind, black butter

Melting and opening underfoot,
Missing its last definition
By millions of years.
They'll never dig coal here,

Only the waterlogged trunks
Of great firs, soft as pulp.
Our pioneers keep striking
Inwards and downwards,

Every layer they strip
Seems camped on before.
The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage.
The wet centre is bottomless.

[Billys Boots]

A very strange sense of humour.