Joe Kernan Resigns

[corn02]

Man in Black is obviosly a WUM.

Orangeman the McEntee incident is a well known fact.

[orangeman]

Corn 02 - is that why the Mc Entees retired ? I have been watching them all year and they have been outstanding for Cross - still well fit to play for Armagh in my opinion. Might they go back to Armagh now that Mc Donnell has come in ?

[Aghdavoyle]

If Stephen Kernan is an above average club player, surely by implication ,that means he' s county standard ?

He is not an above average club player. he is an average club player.

[corn02]

No idea Orangeman, I would hope not.

[gaagaa]

Corn 02 - is that why the Mc Entees retired ? I have been watching them all year and they have been outstanding for Cross - still well fit to play for Armagh in my opinion. Might they go back to Armagh now that Mc Donnell has come in ?

surely any manager would welcome them back?

[corn02]

Well let us not forget that there is a big difference between club and county level and they were not regular starters in the end. I am also sure they are happy playing club football and who can blame them?

[armaghniac]

Club football is especially appealing when you are playing for Cross. However if the McEntee's came to me as an Armagh manager and said they really wanted to make a go of the county team, I'd be glad to have them. 

[dontcare]

the mc entees will never come back, they are havin a great year with cross cus they are injury free for a change, maybe thats because of less demand on the body now they only playin club football. two great players, they make a lot of other players look like wee boys, would love to hear they will return to county but it will not happen.
john mac also wants to be the first captain to lift two club all irelands

[orangeman]

I'd be playing the Mc Entees as well !

[Donagh]

Sugar coated, but a good read from yesterdays Tribune.


NO ORDINARY JOE
Kieran Shannon

I LOVED it. I loved it. There'd be times on big match days on the bus where you'd be saying 'Why the hell do I put myself through this?' but once you got into that dressing room and were on the line, there's nowhere else you'd want to be. When I was a young fella I could have gone to Australia. Dad died when I was 11 and every year Mum would go out to my sisters who were doing awful well out there. Right up 'til I was 21 they'd beg me to go out there. There was nothing here. I had no work after school, I wasn't going steady with anybody; there was no Patricia at the time. I'd say it was a toss of a coin.

Then I said 'If I go I might like it and if I like it I mightn't come back. To hell with it, football means more to me.'

It was the best decision I ever made."

Joe Kernan ushers you into his 'office' which, he laughs, must be "the most luxurious office in the country". On the wall is a huge new TV screen which he zaps on around mid-morning to watch home improvement shows. He likes DIY shows . . . this 'office', otherwise known as the Kernan living room, was once a pub he used run years and years ago . . . and he likes the idea of watching them, here at midday, at his leisure, while next door in the real office Joe Kernan & Sons ticks over without him.

"Up to three years ago myself and Patricia ran that wee show in there on our own, " he says from the comfort of his sofa. "I look back and I don't know how we got through it. People say 'Your business didn't suffer' [with all the football]. Feckin' sure it suffered, because I couldn't do the job properly." But now he has the bodies and sons to delegate. Aaron and Olivia Haughey look after the estate agency, with Stephen, along with Brian Mallon, managing the mortgage and broker end of it.

He's keeping busy though. The other week he wrote to every county board secretary in Ireland, telling them of his new property business venture in the Spanish resort of Costa Blanca.

Kernan bought a villa there nearly 10 years ago where he befriended a Westmeath man called Bernie Comaskey, and in recent months the pair decided to team up together. "I'm going to be spending a bit of time out there next year, showing Irish people some property. You hear people buying overseas not knowing what they're dealing with, and they end up losing a lot of money. I'm dealing with a reputable company who know the scene, and if you buy a house, £1,500 to £3,000 of the commission goes as a fundraiser to a club or county team.

I'm looking forward to it. It's something new to regenerate the energy into."

For there's been a vacuum there. A couple of weeks after announcing his resignation as Armagh manager, Kernan experienced the most disoriented sensation, one that felt "funny" and one that felt "really bad". For the previous few days he had been on some kind of high from all the goodwill extended to him, but then reality crashed.

"For 12 years between Cross and Armagh, I'm up here, my mind flying, phone hopping, thinking only football. Like, I never went anywhere unless I had a notepad with me. All of a sudden the adrenalin stops and it's the strangest thing."

In truth, nothing will replace it. Nothing can. But if life without football is going to be a bit strange for Joe, then life without Joe is going to be a bit surreal for football too.

THE GAME HE DREAMT UP

He's the godfather of the modern game. Maybe you didn't look at it or him that way, but it's true.

The blanket defence. The target man (for before Kieran Donaghy there was Ronan Clarke, and before Ronan Clarke there was Gavin Cummiskey with Cross). Terms like 'inches', 'breaking ball', 'work-rate', 'training camps' had been barely coined before the advent of Cross or Armagh. And he won with Cross and Armagh. When he took over the Cross job, they hadn't won a county title in over 10 years. They had never won Ulster. Now they've won four All Irelands, six Ulsters and 13 straight county championships. That's excellence and that's legacy.

Before he took over the Armagh job, the county had never won an All Ireland or a league. The team were washed up, one he had got to a couple of years too late. In his first year they won the All Ireland. In his fourth, they won the league and the greatest provincial title ever won. They became probably the greatest Ulster team ever, even if only one non-Ulster team . . . Kerry, in a classic . . . ever beat them in championship.

And yeah, we know, they only ever won the one All Ireland, but in Kernan's time, it was Armagh that defined the All Ireland. They changed and set the standards, the parameters, the landscape. Maybe the odd manager this past decade, like Mickey Harte, has been as good and as successful. But there was none better, none as important or influential.

"The minute I took over Cross, I always liked two men up front. That meant you had space. The one thing defenders don't like is space and the one thing forwards do like is space, so the thing was to get it into that space as quick as possible. I looked at the Kerry team that won All Irelands. Charlie Nelligan got it, hit it out to the wing to Jack O'Shea or Paidi, Jacko or Paidi 50 yards out from goal out on the wing, and bang, straight into Bomber. So a team is attacking, the ball drops in your square, keeper gets it, fists it out to the corner back, he hits the right-hand side of midfield; then, bumph, full-forward line, Bomber gets it, lays it off, back of the net.

"Now, to get the ball back and to leave space, you have to track back. So with Cross, we had three men across the middle of the field. Big Colm O'Neill played number 15 and he came out and played in the middle along with Andy Cunningham and John McEntee. So there you had three magnificent, big, strong men who could catch a ball, and then you had Francie at centre-half and Tony McEntee at centre-half forward. So there you had the diamond. We were going to dominate around the middle and we would have space to get the ball in.

"Now, when you don't have the ball, you have to keep your shape. You need to keep two men in the full-forward line and two men in the half forward-line. That still leaves you with 10 people inside your '50. That's enough. Then you win the ball, and you break. Bang! Hit a wingforward, he hits the full-forward line . . . score.

"But for that to work, you must have men who'll work. One name . . . John Toal. You can talk about Geezer [Kieran McGeeney], Oisin, Stevie, McGrane, but they'll all tell you, John Toal was what we were all about. If John Toal had been fit in 2005, we'd have won that All Ireland.

He'd have got a tackle in on Sean Cavanagh.

Every successful team has a John Toal. Who knows where to be, who listens to the call from somebody behind him. 'Take my man, get the tackle in.' Then he pressurises the ball, and somebody else sweeps up and fills the hole. We used that all the time, that sweeper system. So when the pressure is put on the ball out there, they [the opposition] have to kick it, they kick it short, and we have someone to palm it down to and come out with it. The end of the 2002 All Ireland. Justin McNulty fists it down, who's there but Tony McEntee. Tony to Geezer. Final whistle.

"In fairness we would have looked at the Meath and Down teams that won All Irelands in the 90s. That game in Celtic Park against Derry; I often watch that video. The speed at which Down moved the ball that day. And the tackling and work rate. In fairness, there was no problem selling our boys on work rate. Like Diarmuid Marsden was probably the best tackling forward in the game. When Oisin missed the penalty, 65,000 put their heads in their hands. Diarmuid Marsden put the ball and man over the sideline and from that ball, he scored us a point. The first year I took over, the tackles himself and Geezer would make in training used scare me. You'd hear the thumping, you'd feel it, and you'd be saying, 'Holy shit. These boys are going to hurt each other.'

I had to get to understand the mentality of the two men. Backing off just wasn't their way."

Listening to Kernan talk, you're struck by his affection for his players. Over the course of our two-hour chat, he doesn't just mention every one of the 15 players who started in that landmark 2002 All Ireland win, he eulogises them.

Aidan O'Rourke and his right-to-left pass for McDonnell's winning point ("The best pass in that year's championship . . . or any other championship"). His hurt that neither McEntee ever won an All Star ("In 2002 John scored 112 from play; there wasn't a centre forward to touch him that year"). And the fortitude of Oisin McConville.

"I was surprised when Oisin said in the book that we had drifted. It wasn't that we drifted; there'd just be times when Oisin keeps himself to himself. I'd respect that. When he came back to us after the treatment, I didn't make a big fuss. I thought it was just better to get him back into the family atmosphere and move on, because ultimately the people who were looking after him could advise him better than we would. I'd like to think I'd always be there for Oisin. He's always been there for us. A lesser man with his problem would have packed the whole thing in. Lesser players play for their county and do damn all with their clubs. Oisin has played every minute of every championship match for Cross this past 13 years. Thirteen years! Without ever being taken off! Even after the gambling! Even after all those back operations! Our physio told me that the toughest man that he ever dealt with was Oisin McConville. He wasn't wrong."

It took all kinds to achieve what Armagh achieved. For every brooder like Oisin and Geezer, there had to be a joker like Benny Tierney. Tierney had announced his retirement before Kernan was announced as team manager but Kernan begged for him to give it one more year. The team and the dressing room needed him.

"I remember going on the bus one day with Jimmy Smyth to an Ulster final when we were playing with Armagh, " recalls Kernan. "The pair of us were at the back of the bus, having a laugh, and a county board officer came down and ate us out of it, saying we obviously didn't want to win. Another player agreed with him.

When we got to Clones he ran straight into the toilet and spent half an hour in there when Jimmy just got togged off and went out and played. And I remember thinking, every camp needs a Jimmy Smyth. Someone who can have that bit of fun to settle you down before a match yet someone you know who'll be ready for battle."

It wasn't all fun and wins though. Looking back, winning Ulster after Ulster was what made them and it's what broke them. "I wouldn't swap the four Ulsters for anything but it definitely caught up on us. It was unfair. Like, at the start of every year, the goal was to get to an All Ireland quarter-final. From there anything could happen. But getting there was the hard part. I mean, compare Munster to Ulster.

Right now Kerry are in an All Ireland quarterfinal every year. That's their first peak of the year. In Ulster we're beating the shite out of each other just to get to a quarter-final."

Even when they got over that obstacle, there were more. Two thousand and three was a killer. "If we were playing anyone but Tyrone we'd have won that All Ireland, " says Joe, "but Peter [Canavan] had to get up them steps one way or the other." Losing to the old enemy in 2005 wasn't any easier either. But you live with it. You even take pride in it. "That [2005] game, " he says, "was the Thrilla in Manilla. Every blow, the crowd felt it."

Themselves and Tyrone went beyond football. The death of Cormac McAnallen proved that. For those of us who write about this game and had to write about those sad, dark days, an abiding image of that time and of that team is how they carried themselves.

The morning of that funeral in Eglish, the panel gathered in the Armagh City Hotel, all impeccably dressed, all dressed the same. At four minutes to 10, they left the hotel lobby en masse to embark on the bus, and at 10 o'clock on the button that bus pulled out of the car park.

Not at two minutes past, not at three minutes past 10, but on the hour, on the button.

Then, in the little church in Eglish, they were guests of honour as thousands stood outside, before the team then filed out to become guards of honour as the crowd followed Cormac, to his grave. It was the salute and hallmark of champions.

"Well, we felt right away that we needed to do something, to show what the GAA family is all about, " explains Kernan, "so the first thing we did was ring the county board, asking could we be there? We went through the proper channels because to me, there's always a right way and wrong way to do these things.

And fair play to Tyrone and the McAnallen family, they said thank you and invited us into the church.

"I think it was important we were there.

Because for months before and after that [2003] game, people were saying, 'Armagh and Tyrone hate each other. There's no respect, just hatred.' But that's not true. We particularly respected Cormac McAnallen. He was a lovely young lad who was taken away from all of us."

It was the right time to go. The veterans needed a new voice. The youngsters needed more time. And his sons deserved a clean break too. Last month the four of them all started in the Ulster club final . . . Aaron, Stephen, Tony and Paul. If the four of them all started some day with Armagh with Joe still at the helm, there was a danger it would be seen not as another remarkable landmark but as an act of nepotism. In 2004, Stephen Kernan had been one of the mainstays of the county's All Ireland under-21 success; in any county, he'd have been earmarked as a player for the senior team for years to come. In Armagh though, with his father as manager, his promotion was seen . . . even within elements of the camp . . . in suspicious terms. It affected the player's confidence and game, and in the end, his father's wellbeing too.

"I was disappointed with the way some people reacted in the last couple of years. Things were said that were totally untrue. We gave every player a chance. Even some of our great players took three to five years to make it, but with Stephen, it was like he had to be either perfect or not be there at all."

But that's to look back in anger, and that's not Joe's way. Stephen's future is bright, while the past and memories they all shared glow too.

Watching Paul Grimley and John McCloskey on the training ground, masters of all they purveyed; the hairs on the back of everyone's neck when Geezer and John McEntee spoke at a team meeting in La Manga about how they were brothers and if a brother fell, McGeeney would be there to cover his back; you couldn't buy moments like that.

Joe Kernan still hasn't been to Australia. But his eyes have seen the Promised Land. And thanks to him, so have the people of Armagh.

[mackers]

Read this yesterday, another brilliant article by a well-informed and articulate journalist. Compare and contrast this with that tube Liam Hayes's article.

[TacadoirArdMhacha]

"But for that to work, you must have men who'll work. One name . . . John Toal. You can talk about Geezer [Kieran McGeeney], Oisin, Stevie, McGrane, but they'll all tell you, John Toal was what we were all about. If John Toal had been fit in 2005, we'd have won that All Ireland.

Where does that sit with the fact that in 2003 Philip Loughran was preferred to John Toal at midfield? Was there an injury to Toal I'm forgetting about?

Good article though.

[ONeill]

Why?

[saffron sam2]

Read this yesterday, another brilliant article by a well-informed and articulate journalist. Compare and contrast this with that tube Liam Hayes's article.

Who is this Andy Cunningham chappy he mentions then?

[heganboy]

The target man (for before Kieran Donaghy there was Ronan Clarke, and before Ronan Clarke there was Gavin Cummiskey with Cross)

The original and still the best...