pressure job

[Tyrone_redhand]

Uneasy will lie any head the Kingdom crowns

TOM HUMPHRIES


With Kerry on the cusp of ignominy if they don't perform next year, who would be their coach?

FOR LOVERS of intrigue there is nothing like Kerry football. And for lovers of Kerry football there is no place better to be next Sunday than in Tralee for the county semi-finals.

The most compelling bout on the short bill pits Kerins O'Rahillys of Tralee against South Kerry.

O'Rahillys - or Strand Road, as they are known locally - are managed by Jack O'Connor, the man who has done more than most to identify south Kerry as a nature reserve with a fauna composed mainly of outsiders.

South Kerry are led onto the field by Declan O'Sullivan.

What is extraordinary about these two extraordinary men is their friendship. They would take a bullet for each other.

Not next Sunday, though. In any given year Jack facing down Declan would be a spectacle for the masses. This year is different, though. It is Jack's first year on Strand Road. The Kerry manager's job is vacant.

When it comes to football, be it with Dromid Pearses or at schools, underage or senior county level, Jack doesn't really do failure. His record is extraordinary.

So it was a fantastic plot twist to put him at this time against his native South Kerry.

The cognoscenti will be watching with narrowed eyes.

If Strand Road win, pushing themselves into a county final in Jack's first year in charge, there will be a small clamour for him to get back into the bainisteoir bibs. If Strand Road lose, the clamour will be more modest but just as understandable

Would Jack take it all on if asked, though? Would anybody hoist all that weight of expectation on to their own shoulders, having felt the crushing burden of it before?

Tommy Lasorda, one of the most quotable of baseball managers, once noted that pressure is the thing you feel once you start to think about failure. In that respect, most inter-county football managers can think about failure without any detrimental effect on their pulse rate. Their county history is inevitably one of failure punctuated by the odd manic outbreak of success. Who would want to manage Kerry, though?

First there is that daunting mound of statistics, a testament to the county's unfamiliarity with failure. You can't look down. You can't think about failure in Kerry. You know once Mickey Ned O'Sullivan, one of the wisest and best of Kerryman, started out on his tenure as Kerry manager by expressing the thought that even if his players didn't have All-Ireland medals at the end of the period he hoped they would have grown as people.

Mickey Ned was excoriated.

Then there is the existence around the county of the golden-age players, their presence as ghostly and intimidating as the monumental statues of Easter Island.

Here in Dublin there tends to be little storm in all our teacups when ex-cathedra pronouncements on the state of Dublin football are made in the media by alumni like Keith Barr, Paul Curran or Charlie Redmond, a trinity whose aggregate haul of All-Ireland senior medals comes to, well, three. The 70s team have settled into a benign sort of silence.

I'm not sure Dublin football could cope if there was the constant threat of denunciation from players who have six, seven or eight All-Ireland football medals.

Then there is the county's unusual integration of football into daily culture. Pat Gilroy may be untried as a senior inter-county manager but most of us in Dublin are happy to believe that Pat knows more about managing an inter-county team than we do.

In Kerry, you never know more about football than the next man does, and if you do, you are cute enough not to let on.

Rough f***ing animals, as Páidí put it so impetuously.

And there is the dressing-room. At the heart of the Kerry dressing-room are a group of men who have been playing in All-Ireland finals every year for half a decade. They know the routine so well, the game so well, the metabolism of their team so well they could almost run the business themselves. They see through phonies and bluffers and beaten dockets. Close your eyes and picture it. Is there any football team in the country you would less like to be walking in on and facing for the first time? Imagine yourself standing there telling that team you have a little plan to make them better.

Dublin can afford to take a risk on Pat Gilroy's intelligence and class. Kerry can't really afford a punt on anyone. Tyrone can't be let away like Down were in the 1960s.

Finally, there is the current state of play in the Kingdom. Each of Kerry's last three managers has won at least one All-Ireland title. Páidí Ó Sé was cut loose. Jack O'Connor and Pat O'Shea left without much demur after brief tenures that in any other county would have been deemed wildly successful.

In three years Jack reached three finals, winning two. In two years, Pat reached two finals, winning one. When they got up to leave they got a handshake and a "Thank you" as the "Smart boy wanted sign" was being stuck back in the window.

In Dublin, where we believe our manager to be under inhuman pressure, we talk about getting to an All-Ireland final as being the next step. In Kerry, not reaching the All-Ireland final will be an intolerable blow after such a run.

In Kerry, for the next few years even winning an an All-Ireland or two in a row or three in a row will not be enough. Beating Mickey Harte's Tyrone team in a major championship game in Croke Park is all that matters. Doing it playing fine football would be a bonus. Doing that playing fine football in an All-Ireland final would be preferable.

Throw in all the regional politics and speeches made with forked tongues and you have a managerial situation more fascinating that those of the 31 other counties combined.

Never before have Kerry been on the cusp of abject failure if they don't perform. There are special needs associate with Gaelic football in Kerry.

No space more interesting to watch.

© 2008 The Irish Times

[Tyrone_redhand]

Can Jack stop the 2-in-a-row ?  With stevie and co back from injury and with another year to gel I think Tyrone will show they are better than Kerry, full stop.

[nrico2006]

I am very optimistic about Tyrones chances this year with SON back along with BMG getting back to full fitness and hopefully Mulligan can get back to his best. 

[Tyrone_redhand]

yeah, and doing the 2-in-a-row to end the "team of the decade" argument will also be a great motivating factor. I think our biggest challenge will come from Armagh next year though as I think Kerry have gone backwards (literally  )

[Zulu]

Armagh??? No offence to the Armagh boys but what have they done recently to be ranked higher than Kerry? And I'm not sure I see where yer getting all this confidence in Tyrone either. If DOS shot had gone in Kerry may well have kicked on and won the AI. They'll have David Moran and Darren O'Sullivan next year along with a more experienced Tommy Walsh, throw in the one or two more unknowns that they always come up with and only a fool would write them off. Cork are getting stronger, Mayo will be better, Galway have potential, Dublin will be there or thereabouts, throw in Meath, Wexford, Derry , Monaghan and Donegal (maybe) and you can surely appreciate Tyrone will have plenty to do.

[Tyrone Dreamer]

Armagh??? No offence to the Armagh boys but what have they done recently to be ranked higher than Kerry? And I'm not sure I see where yer getting all this confidence in Tyrone either. If DOS shot had gone in Kerry may well have kicked on and won the AI. They'll have David Moran and Darren O'Sullivan next year along with a more experienced Tommy Walsh, throw in the one or two more unknowns that they always come up with and only a fool would write them off. Cork are getting stronger, Mayo will be better, Galway have potential, Dublin will be there or thereabouts, throw in Meath, Wexford, Derry , Monaghan and Donegal (maybe) and you can surely appreciate Tyrone will have plenty to do.

If Kevin Hughes had have passed the ball instead of shooting 2 or 3 times or if Stevie O'Neill had have come back earlier in the year who's to say Tyrone wouldnt have won by more. Its all ifs and buts. The way Tyrone finished the game there's a good chance that they would still have bounced back from a Kerry goal. In 03 Tyrone came from 9 down v Down to level with five mins to go and then Down got another goal. Tyrone still had the belief to get 3 late points.

Next year is a new year. As I've said before every time someone wins an All Ireland people are very quick to say no one will touch them the following the year. In reality its rare enough that teams put together back to back wins. Having said that think Tyrone will be very motivated to do it.

[Zulu]

I knew some Tyronie would come back with that type of reply, of course most close games are all about ifs and buts and yes Tyrone won fair and square but some of your county men suggested Kerry were going backwards which is rubbish. Tyrone may well be motivate to win it again but the other 31 will be equally motivated to stop them and there are quite a few capable of doing it.

[tyssam5]

"Tommy Lasorda, one of the most quotable of baseball managers"

Only got this far in the article. If it's not Vince Lombardi it's some other American coach from some shite book he's read, Humphries is getting boring.

[Fear ón Srath Bán]

And I'm not sure I see where yer getting all this confidence in Tyrone either. If DOS shot had gone in Kerry may well have kicked on and won the AI.

Understand that entirely -- we're still poring over the 1986 final against Kerry, when Kevin Mc Cabe managed to miss the onion bag with his penalty, and we lost both Eugene Mc Kenna and Tar Lynch to injuries. There's but no doubt at all that had we buried that penalty, and the two lads hadn't fallen to ill-luck, we'd have kicked on from our seven point lead to close out the game. Damn!

And don't be waiting for an Armagh or Derry lad to hit you with that; could you think it would be anyone other than a Tyronie? 

I knew some Tyronie would come back with that type of reply, of course most close games are all about ifs and buts and yes Tyrone won fair and square but some of your county men suggested Kerry were going backwards which is rubbish. Tyrone may well be motivate to win it again but the other 31 will be equally motivated to stop them and there are quite a few capable of doing it.

Time will tell Zulu, but I have never seen greater focus and obsession on the next year with a Tyrone team as I've seen with this one, which really only applies to 2003 and beyond. But nonetheless, there's a real sense of a job half-done with the lads this year, and that gives me more hope than at any other time that we'll give it a real good rattle in 2009, a real good rattle.

And, if we are motivated, with the same edge and hunger, why weren't we stopped this year, if there are 'quite a few capable of doing it'?

[INDIANA]

Dublin can afford to take a risk on Pat Gilroy's intelligence and class

Few defeats will unfortunately change that Tom. Humphries is a fine writer but oblivious when it comes to Dublin and vincents unfortunately.

[Fear ón Srath Bán]

And, if we are motivated, with the same edge and hunger, why weren't we stopped this year, if there are 'quite a few capable of doing it'?

Because Dessie Dolan, Conor Mortimor and Declan O'Sullivan all fluffed their lines when they had the chance to deal yous a serious blow. You have to admit Tyrone came through a few tight games this year and if the breaks hadn't gone their way they could've been gone by August. Of course this is 'ifs' and 'buts' stuff, but its a bit silly to suggest that Tyrone were so far ahead of all other teams this year that next year there won't be anyone capable of stopping them.

Yep, and if Monaghan had been awarded that free against Kerry in 2007, they probably would have won, and if Armagh had been blown for a throw-ball 2002 instead of scoring that goal, etc., etc. Could haves and would haves are futile - we won the games that mattered, even if we did have to grind the results out. I'm not saying that we're so far ahead, what I am saying is that we better placed this year to give it a real good go, than we were in either of 2004 or 2006. Nothing more.

[Fear ón Srath Bán]

Yep, and if Monaghan had been awarded that free against Kerry in 2007, they probably would have won, and if Armagh had been blown for a throw-ball 2002 instead of scoring that goal, etc., etc...

And I got clean away with that!