Journalists getting their timing wrong

[irunthev]

Kieran Shannon is a top journalist, writes intelligent interesting pieces, but occasionally, when he gets the timing wrong, even he can be made look a bit foolish as can be seen by this article from the Tribune a week or so ago.

Great article, but I bet he wishes he had held fire for a while though.

A non-stop decade of success and attention have left Kerry tired of the summer slog, and that is the very reason why a team of superstars that has illuminated recent years is fast approaching the end
Kieran Shannon, Gaelic Games Editor

The real story isn't so much what happened in Kerry in the past week but why it happened, but we'll begin with what happened first. After Syl Doyle blew the final whistle in Tralee last Saturday week, you'd only have known Kerry had won by checking the scoreboard or the cheer of relief from the crowd. Even Paul Galvin, who had a magnificent game, seemed to be as embarrassed as he was sympathetic in offering his commiserations to Sligo players before drooping off towards the tunnel. As the crowds emptied out, a dozen Kerry players that had got little or no game time were put through a rigorous sharpening-up session by trainer Alan O'Sullivan. Micheal Quirke was instantly visible from the stands, as was the blinding pace of Darren O'Sullivan but the player that stood out most was Tadhg Kennelly. After all the others had finished up, Kennelly stayed on for another quarter of hour working on his point-taking. It signalled a message: Kerry were still in the championship, determined to win their All Ireland, and in Kennelly was someone desperate to win one.

Back in the dressing room though, there were players in a pique of "Yerrah, f**k it", who decided to go drinking that night. In a goldfish bowl like Killarney they were always going to be spotted and when the panel assembled on Tuesday, they were challenged by management and then in a players' meeting by their colleagues. Tomás Ó Sé and Colm Cooper owned up that they had been drinking; Cooper in downtown Killarney, Ó Sé on the outskirts of the town.

But why did they do it?

It's all in the name of where Cooper went on Saturday night with a few friends from home.

The bar is called Jade's.

The jaded went to Jade's.

• • •

Last Thursday Colm Cooper was the main photograph on the front page of a national broadsheet newspaper, above the story that he and Tomás Ó Sé had been dropped from the starting 15. There's barely another team in Ireland that would command such attention for their indiscretion and demotion.

In being such public property, Cooper is there to be deconstructed. Liam Hayes has questioned Cooper's claims to greatness, saying that he could never win a game on his own the way a Canavan or Colm O'Rourke did. It's a dubious argument; for every brilliant performance of Canavan or O'Rourke's, we'd be able to counter it immediately with one from Cooper. But there was another fundamental reason why it was flawed. Only Cooper's dodgy spells were recalled by Hayes; never Canavan's or O'Rourke's.

The country had never heard of Colm O'Rourke before he hit a 14-yard free off the upright against Dublin in a 1983 Leinster semi-final. O'Rourke by then was 25. Cooper was only 25 last year.

Peter Canavan was 23 by the time he won his first championship match. When Cooper was 23 he had won three All Stars and three All Irelands. Liam will magnify Cooper's run of four poor-to-mediocre games in the middle of Championships 2006 and 2009, without any mention of Canavan's five-year anonymity from 1997 to 2001. We say this not to question Canavan or O'Rourke's greatness, but to defend Cooper's. He's been a gift to the game.

But he's been flogged. He's gone stale, on the verge of burnout.

In his club, Dr Croke's, they've noticed it. Over the past couple of years any teammate that doesn't play in the perfect ball, any referee who makes a dubious call, risks a verbal lashing and chasing. That would have been unimaginable a few years ago.

Sports psychologists have a term for it – depersonalisation. They hand out a questionnaire called the Maslach Inventory, asking players to agree or not with statements like: "I find myself treating others impersonally and feel less sensitive and more hardened towards others"; "When things go wrong, I'm less tolerant and tend to blame others more than I'm used to." In the 1990s the angriest anyone in Erins Own ever saw Brian Corcoran get was when he was wrongly pulled up for a free and without saying a word snapped the ball to the ground before walking on. By 2001 he was regularly hounding referees. He retired a few months later, burned out, depersonalised.

If you were to sum up why Kerry are stuttering this summer while Tyrone are flying, then you could call it August in Chicago Syndrome. When Tyrone were beaten by the likes of Laois and Meath in 2006 and 2007, their players were able to head off and party, see the sites, play a bit of football as mere fun. Kerry have only known August in Croke Park. This is Cooper's eighth championship and he's only had one September off. This is Darragh Ó Sé's 14th summer as a starter with Kerry and he's only had one August off.

It's the same for most of the team. Incredibly, Cooper was the side's fourth-youngest starter last Saturday week.

Diarmuid Murphy won an All Ireland under-21 medal way back in 1996. Four of the six backs that played in front of him against Sligo have been there since 2000. Marc Ó Sé has been there since 2002, Aidan O'Mahony since 2004.

There's a lot of medals in them backs but a lot of mileage too.

And that's what's happened here. That's all that's happened. This is the downside of success. The hamsters are tired of the treadmill.

The likes of Cooper are playing county championship into November; East Kerry O'Donoghue Cup right until Christmas. And then it's the holiday.

This Kerry team have never had the full month of January at home. The January after they lost the 2002 All Ireland final you'll remember Páidí sitting by the waterfront in Cape Town, waffling on about Nelson Mandela. The January after losing the 2005 All Ireland they headed off to Las Vegas and Cancun. Even the one year they didn't reach an All Ireland final there was no reprieve; in January 2004 they went to Lanzarote for a training camp.

In the unlikely case that Kerry reach this year's All Ireland, take it there will be no team holiday. These fellas don't need another break with each other, they need a break from each other. And they're never away from the scene. They're always been judged – in every pub and every paper in the country, not just county – by the crippling standards of the two most successful teams in GAA history – O'Dwyer's Kerry and Cody's Kilkenny – the only two other teams that have played in as many consecutive All Ireland semi-finals as this current Kerry team. When Tyrone lose to middleweights like Laois and Meath and Down they get a leave of absence. When Kerry lose to fellow heavyweights like Armagh and Tyrone and Cork there is a national inquiry (and let's face it, something of a national celebration too).

Can they turn it around now? Highly unlikely. You can say that they were here in 2006 too but they're three years older now and there's no Donaghy to ignite and remind them it's all just a game. That's part of their problem. They keep reading from the 2006 script. Win the league. If you don't win Munster, drink ban.

In a book that Mickey Harte has devoured, the legendary NBA coach Pat Riley outlines the various stages in the cycle of a team. The last he calls 'core cracking' – "when winning," he says, "has played itself out". After a decade of incredible success, Riley left the LA Lakers, Magic Johnson telling him that after a big loss, the players knew he was probably going to crash a chair against the wall to buck them up. So it is with Kerry. Lose to Cork – drink ban, lads.

Even the pros drink between games. On Planet GAA, you can never just have a couple of drinks; it's feast or famine. It's hard to feel that sorry for these Kerry players. They've played in so many All Irelands, they've travelled and seen the world. But Colm Cooper lives in Killarney. There's a lot more going on there on a Wednesday night than there is in Ballygawley. Forget about August in Chicago; Cooper wanted a bit of July in Killarney. His decision to go drinking last week wasn't so much a breach of discipline as a cry of exasperation, nigh one of help – "I'm a Kerry celebrity; get me out of here."

Cooper had to be hauled up with the rule in place, but maybe this summer the rule shouldn't have been there in the first place. But it's difficult to be critical of Jack O'Connor. He would have wanted to freshen up the team but then Aidan O'Shea and Daniel Bohane got injured, so did Anthony Maher while a couple of close relatives of David Moran suffered some ill-health. Plus, that's a tough dressing room to handle.

It will be a different one next year. Darragh will go; probably Diarmuid Murphy and Tom O'Sullivan too, and possibly Tomás Ó Sé, Aidan O'Mahony, even Gooch, along with him. What we're witnessing is the core cracking of a team that has had an incredible run.

Enjoy them while you can, even if they're no longer enjoying it themselves.

[No way ref]

great piece

he obviously didn't realise just how bad dublin were

[An Laoch]

yeah, that's a great article.

We all call things wrong every now and again, at least his take on it was well constructed and considered.

[irunthev]

Shannon is certainly a guy well worth reading.

[blewuporstuffed]

very good article

[orangeman]

Well written and interesting except that he got it so very badly wrong on this occasion. But a good read nonetheless.

[INDIANA]

Well written and interesting except that he got it so very badly wrong on this occasion. But a good read nonetheless.

In relation to kerrys brilliance last weekend- people are underestimating how bad dublin were . Mayo will give kerry a very stiff test and more.

[nrico2006]

Good article, anyone else think the posts after the article were weird looking after reading the article in bold!!

[ziggysego]

Well written and interesting except that he got it so very badly wrong on this occasion. But a good read nonetheless.

In relation to kerrys brilliance last weekend- people are underestimating how bad dublin were . Mayo will give kerry a very stiff test and more.

or Dublin just provide the springboard to build a successful year. Confidence does wonders for a team.

[An Laoch]

In relation to kerrys brilliance last weekend- people are underestimating how bad dublin were . Mayo will give kerry a very stiff test and more.

Looks like you are guilty of a little underestimation there yourself regarding Meath?

[JMohan]

I think he's one of the only journalists worth reading on GAA for insightful comment - it's obvious he does a bit of background work

There's not many others I'd rush to read

On that - wonder what Paidi thinks having tipped Dublin?!

[irunthev]

Apparently, according to Colm Bradley (Fermanagh) Shannon is a sports psychologist himself and has done work with the Fermanagh team, so we can presume he knows what he is talking about.

[INDIANA]

In relation to kerrys brilliance last weekend- people are underestimating how bad dublin were . Mayo will give kerry a very stiff test and more.

Looks like you are guilty of a little underestimation there yourself regarding Meath?

Unless Bray plays I can't see Meath winning. If he was they would have a good chance. He is their pivotal player.

[Drung]

Apparently, according to Colm Bradley (Fermanagh) Shannon is a sports psychologist himself and has done work with the Fermanagh team, so we can presume he knows what he is talking about.

Apparently, according to Kieran Shannon (Sunday Tribune and Cork hurlers), Shannon is a sports psychologist himself and thinks the Kerry team are finished, so we can presume he knows what he is talking about.

[JMohan]

Apparently, according to Colm Bradley (Fermanagh) Shannon is a sports psychologist himself and has done work with the Fermanagh team, so we can presume he knows what he is talking about.

Apparently, according to Kieran Shannon (Sunday Tribune and Cork hurlers), Shannon is a sports psychologist himself and thinks the Kerry team are finished, so we can presume he knows what he is talking about.

lol!