Journalist Write-Off 2009

[ha ha derry]

As they say in Monaghan "Brolly is a Tool". But it,s Brolly for me.

[Main Street]

Brolly by a nose.

Both very good but Brolly manages to pitch his piece to an excellent read, replete with the icing effect of the camaraderie name dropping of some of the legends of modern football.

[ONeill]

6-4 Brolly. Looks like the fairytale Mr Gaaboard adventure has run its course. Still time.

[Hardy]

Feckit lads are we Irish voters or not? You vote for your own. There's still time to get the late vote out.

Mr Gaaboard for me.

[Main Street]

Some of us have the moral integrity to rise above such mundane criteria
Mr Gaaboard's vote is now tainted by support based on petty rivalry above journalistic merit.

[amigo]

Brolly for me!

[IolarCoisCuain]

Brolly.

[ONeill]

8-6 Brolly with a few hours left.

[oakleafgael]

Brolly.

[Main Street]

Nevertheless, Mr Gaaboard deserves special mention for blowing the lid on commonplace nefarious practices around the Derry club scene.

'None of the diving and injury feigning and trash talking and sly digging and crowd-applauding and pulling-the-jersey-over-the-head-ing and soccer-aping and yards-stealing and goalkeeper-encroaching and rule-ignoring that had infiltrated many other clubs.'

[Hardy]

I voted for him regardless.

[ONeill]

PMed statement from Mr Gaaboard:

A Chairde

It looks like Mr GAABOARD's romantic run is over at the penultimate stage. Can I just thank the six of you who voted for me. There's pints for all of you. Just PM ONeill for my email address. In particular I would like to single out Hardy, as fine a Gael as you will meet. Surely he should be at Bud's side when he meets Sean Og Potts.

I had already started thinking about my article for the final. It would have been an extension of the Ballinderry - Dungiven 1982 love-in, with added twist where one of the footballing heroes becomes involved in an inappropriate relationship with an Iris h female politician (no, not that one).

All youse f**kers who voted for the tired 'humour' of Joe Brolly will now never know the real secret of 1982.

Slan.

[ONeill]

2009 Final

KIERAN SHANNON (Sunday Tribune) v JOE BROLLY (Gaelic Life)


KIERAN SHANNON

High five for Rebelettes

Cork all-conquering ladies came from nowhere to rule the roost thanks to Eamonn Ryan's inclusive respect and trust reign

BECAUSE they're women, we mightn't look at them as one of the Irish sports teams of the decade when they are, and were we to take the time to look at them and where they've come from, we'd find they're one of the most unlikely stories of the decade too. Before Kilkenny and Kerry and Tyrone did dominance they at least did respectability. The month before Brian Cody took over Kilkenny that county had contested the All Ireland final. The season before Mickey Harte took over Tyrone, that team had won a national league title with Art McRory. Before the beginning of Eamonn Ryan's beautiful relationship with the Cork ladies footballers, Juliet Murphy and the girls were like Seabiscuit before Tom Smith and Red Pollard entered his life; also-rans, afterthoughts, nobodies. The likes of Kerry and Waterford in Munster didn't respect them, let alone fear them. Sure they didn't even respect themselves.

"There was no sense of pride playing for Cork," recalls Murphy. "We were losing all the time, getting hammered by Kerry in Munster finals. You'd be selective about going training because it would be so depressing turning up and maybe having only eight or nine players there. There was no unity. I wouldn't sit beside Deirdre O'Reilly in the dressing room because I was from Donoughmore and she was from Rockchapel. We'd go down to Killarney and meet up for the first time in the dressing room, not knowing whether we'd be wearing red or white jerseys. Our last training session before one Munster final was a challenge game against my own club and the club ended up giving Cork five players to make up the numbers."

Murphy wasn't looking for any gimmicks or frills; she was a country girl to the core who'd report for international basketball duty wearing unfashionable black Donoughmore football socks, leaving her open to some severe ribbing from the slick hoopsters from Dublin and Waterford. In hindsight all Murphy and her Cork football colleagues were seeking and missing was some sense of direction, some guidance, some attention and love. Murphy's dedication and athleticism could never be questioned; she was a senior international basketball player which required passing stringent fitness and skill levels drawn up and demanded by Gerry Fitzpatrick.

Neither could Mary O'Connor. Before Ryan ever came along, she had won a rake of senior All Ireland medals with the county camogie team, a child of Killeagh who had played with Joe Deane and marked Jerry O'Connor in an under-12 county final win. Someone else would have long thrown their lot exclusively in with the camogie team instead of ploughing away with the footballers through the junior and intermediate grades and during those annual whippings to the likes of Kerry and Waterford. But she hung in there, out of a love for the game and the jersey and sensing they were better and things could be better.

Eamonn Ryan knew little about them when he took them on in 2004 at the grand old age of 64 and they knew only a bit more about him. They knew alright that he had a produced a stream of fine players and teams out of Watergrasshill where he taught for years and that he was highly-regarded up in Na Piarsaigh and UCC and wider Cork GAA circles as both a hurling and football coach. But as regards the big-time, '83 when Tadghie Murphy floored the Kingdom with that last-minute goal was as big as it got. He didn't have anything like the profile or platform or silverware as contemporaries like Justin and Gerald, but what he had over them was a different outlook on coaching. Where distrust and disharmony ruined both Justin and Gerald's last inter-county gig, mutual trust, respect and affection have been the hallmarks of Ryan's. Old school went new school.

"Fifteen years ago, coaching was all about me, what I said, what I thought. But then I started going down to Limerick and the NCTC (National Coaching Training Centre) and reading material by [GAA games development manager] Pat Daly and I began to reflect on how to go about the job. I now view my role as to create a positive environment where the player can flourish, physically and mentally, and become the best player they can be. If you just have them run laps, that's mentally not a positive environment; there's no fun in that. I'm there to serve them, not for them to serve me.

"Once they realise that, discipline becomes very easy to manage. I often say to the girls I could walk out of training, go for a pint in the Bishopstown Bar, come back an hour later and they'd still be training with the same focus and intensity. If I knew three or four of the players were pissed off with me or thought I was too old or too stale, I'd be gone. If both groups don't trust each other, the coach shouldn't be there."

Ryan didn't work his magic overnight. In his first Munster championship game, a round-robin game in Killorglin, the team trailed Kerry 3-9 to 0-4 at half-time. He was impressed though that night that the dressing room didn't descend into a bitching session and the manner in which the team fought back to finish within two goals of Kerry. Later that summer they avenged that defeat to win Cork their first-ever Munster senior championship. They would lose their All Ireland quarter-final to Mayo, largely, Ryan feels, because he had the team too worked up about trying to avenge their league final defeat to the same opposition. But they haven't lost a championship match since and only once have failed to win the league either.

It's an incredible transformation; eight of the team that won last September's All Ireland had been heavily beaten by Kerry in 2003 and indeed that night in Killorglin in '04. They're only the same names as they were then. They're different people, different players. Better players.

In this year's Munster final O'Connor kicked the first left-footed point of her competitive career. She was 32 at the time, the holder of 10 senior All Ireland medals between football and camogie, yet she and Ryan weren't satisfied with just being as good as she was; hence all that practice with the left, that point with the left, and this September, her 11th and 12th senior All Ireland medals. It took three years under Ryan for Juliet Murphy to appreciate that recovery is preparation and that she was over-training, working out two or three times a day. Every night he's with them Ryan emphasises skills and lifestyle. Murphy is such a good tackling midfielder because every night Ryan has them working on their near-hand tackling. And O'Connor is still playing both codes 15 years on from her inter-county debut because of the lifestyle she chooses.

"I think I make the hard choices. Eamonn calls them the winning choices. Eating right during the day, going into the sea for a recovery session; resting up, missing weddings. Brothers of mine have got married and that night I've been home at 11.30 that night. It might only be a challenge game the next day but it doesn't matter – you're still playing for Cork. Some people might find that strange but as one of our selectors, Frankie Honohan puts it, football is our social life. We enjoy each other's company. The training is fun. I love the two or three minutes after winning an All Ireland, meeting all the other girls on the field, but if this was only about All Ireland medals, I would have retired a long time ago."

You might remember O'Connor from her All Ireland winning acceptance speech – "Kilkenny, we'll see your four and raise you one!" Because it came from a Cork woman, it was misperceived in some quarters but it was spoken by a huge admirer of Kilkenny hurling; O'Connor has attended the last five Kilkenny county finals and regularly attends those legendary workouts Cody supervises in Nowlan Park. She sees the application, the commitment to being better, the complete lack of ego in that set-up, and it's a model she aspires to and recognises in the setup Ryan has cultivated. Out in The Farm, there is no ego, no division; only a sense of camaraderie and co-operation. The same Deirdre O'Reilly who Juliet Murphy once wouldn't sit next or near to is now so trusted by Murphy, she does her hair. The same Ryan who will still make a smart quip about a half-hearted Murphy tackle gave her grinds in Irish to help her pass her interview to get into teacher training college in Mary I last year.

A beautiful friendship continues, and with it, one of the greatest winning streaks and sports teams of recent times.

[saffron sam2]

Brolly.

[ONeill]

JOE BROLLY

Nearly twenty years ago, my sister Nodlaig spent her summer at the Donegal Gaeltacht. She had a whale of a time, lapping up the excitement of being away from home for the first time, speaking Irish wall to wall, sneaking out of the house at night with her friends to meet equally nervous teenage boys. Some of the girls even got a kiss, or 'a snog' as they used to describe it in those innocent days. One of those teenage boys was a young man from Creggan called Peadar Heffron. On Tuesday past in the Royal Victoria Hospital, after the surgeons had consultted with his devastated parents Frank and Eithne, Peadar had his right leg amputated at the hip. The previous Friday, as he left home outside Randalstown at half six in the morning, an under car booby trap went off beneath his seat, leaving his body a disgusting mess. He was breathing and conscious when the paramedics arrived, but hasn't been awake since. His pelvic area was destroyed by the bomb. The flesh and skin from his ruined right leg has been used to help rebuild his mid section. He has been oblivious as he has see-sawed between life and death throughout the week.

Since he was a child, he played Gaelic football for Creggan Kickhams. When he left school, he worked in the Civil Service, first in the Department of Education and Learning, later as an administrative officer with the Social Security Agency. When the Good Friday Agreement was made, it was a fundamental part of the negotiations that a new police force be created. This was duly done. I am not a fan of police, but that's just me. I am simply not a fan of authority, whether it's the NYPD or the Gardai. When the PSNI was formed, I remember the BBC sent a camera crew to Crossmaglen to do a vox pop. They interviewed Paddy Short, unofficial Mayor of Crossmaglen, and father of the county footballers Aidan and Oliver. The lady reporter asked him the following question. " Now that there is a new police force, do you think that young people from Crossmaglen might be inclined to join?" "No" said Paddy. "Why not?" she asked. "Well" said Paddy, "we're just not built that way around here." In his inimitable way, Paddy was summing up an entirely legitimate anti-authoritarian philosophy. The majority of people are like this. It is why we dislike  TV Licence men or Traffic wardens.

A few years ago, St Brigid's played the PSNI team. We were the first club team to do so. Graffiti went up in the city centre: "Shame on you Joe. Shame on St Brigids." A few weeks afterwards I was stopped on the street by a provisional. " You're a disgrace " he said" playing those boys." " You handed over your guns to them" I said, "we played them in a football match."

The whole point of the new settlement has been to create a civilised society by agreement. The PSNI is one of the fruits of that agreement. Damien Tucker was one of the founder members of their Gaelic football team. He played for Tullylish (James McCartan's club) as a goalie and later full forward. When he joined the RUC, he could no longer play the game he loved. When we played the PSNI team, we chatted afterwards over a few pints about the massive changes in society. I referred to my lunches up at Stormont with my father, Sinn Fein members strolling through the palatial hall calling out " Joe a chara," comfortable as Tiger Woods on the 18th. He recalled the massive wrench it was when he joined the RUC. On his first day when he went into the canteen, the first thing he saw was a large portrait of the Queen, flanked by Union flags. He says he had to take a deep breath, before picking his sandwich. With the advent of the PSNI all of this changed utterly. The portrait and the flags are gone. If anyone put one up now they would be sacked. The Politicians on the green side (doesn't it sound so antiquated?) encouraged people to join. They did. One of these was Peadar Heffron. He joined the PSNI soon after its formation, coming in with the second tranche of new recruits. A PSNI Gaelic football team was established and Peadar soon became the captain. His family and extended family are Irish to the bone, politically, socially and culturally. His uncle Oliver Kearney (father of Sinn Fein's Director of Information Declan) was a truly great Irishman, responsible for promoting the McBride anti-discrimination principles throughout Irish America and lobbying ceaselessly for an end to discrimination in the Northern Ireland workplace. In my parent's home, pride of place in the good room is given to a large framed photograph of Oliver and his beloved wife Brigid. They must be turning in their graves today.

I heard one of the Dissident people saying recently that their aim was to "get rid of British Rule". What twaddle. Self determination is alive and well in the North. In a few months time when justice and policing are devolved, there will be no British rule at all. The financial negotiations to cut the umbilical cord are at an advanced stage. Give it a few years and we will have as much a connection to Britain as Australia. Recently, Peadar addressed a policing board meeting in Derry 'as Gaeilge'. I thought this is what we all wanted, a police force where people could be what they were and freely express themselves without discrimination. On the one hand, we have a lad professing the Gaelic ideal openly, through the language and the games. On the other, we have a man crawling under a car in the dead of night to try to kill him. Which society is best? Who is the better Irishman?

In Eric Bogle's great anti war song "Waltzing Matilda", the young hero was a free-rover who travelled the outback. When the war came, he fought at Suvla Bay against the Turks and was hit by a mortar. When he woke up in his hospital bed, he "looked at the place where my legs used to be/ And thank Christ there was no one there waiting for me/ To grieve, to mourn and to pity."

When this young free rover wakes up, he will be horrified at the loss of his leg. But he will be surrounded by his family, his wife Fiona and his many friends. When we played them, he was conspicuous by the ferocity of his play, all heart and soul. I spoke this week to the chairman of the PSNI club and he said that he would not be surprised if he becomes the first Gaelic footballer to take the field with a prosthetic. I fervently pray for that day.

JOE BROLLY