Brothers in Sport Page 16
He wouldn’t have displayed it publicly, but Micheál Ó Sé would have been intensely proud.
Tomás, Darragh and Marc Ó Sé pose for the cameras in the build-up to the All-Ireland final of 2002, the first final that featured all three brothers. ©Brendan Moran/SPORTSFILE
* * *
Darragh was just out of minor ranks when Denis ‘Ogie’ Moran decided he was ready to play senior football for Kerry. It was 1993 and Kerry’s fortunes were low. They had won just one of the last seven Munster Championships. They had been beaten by Clare in the 1992 Munster final. The citizens were getting restless. This represented a famine for Kerry football, an unprecedented period of disappointment. According to Darragh there was no mystery about their predicament. ‘We didn’t have a strong team at the time. There were some established players, but there were also a lot of young players coming through, a lot of chopping and changing was going on and we couldn’t get a settled team. We just didn’t have the players to be honest.’
There were welcome distractions. Uncle Páidí had taken over as coach to the Kerry under-21 team in 1993 and by 1995 had assembled a talented bunch. Diarmuid Murphy, Barry O’Shea, Killian Burns, Mike and Liam Hassett, Darragh, John Crowley and Dara Ó Cinnéide were among the youngsters being groomed for the next level. They were learning well and won the All-Ireland title in 1995, the majority of them being eligible for the following season when they retained the Championship. By then Páidí had been elevated to the post of Kerry senior coach.
He had the choice of some experienced campaigners like Séamus Moynihan, Maurice Fitzgerald, Liam Flaherty, Éamon Breen, Stephen Stack and Seán Burke with whom he could mix the pick of the youngsters from the under-21 team. They targeted a Munster title. They won it. And then, as Páidí freely admitted in his biography, they celebrated like madmen. They went into the All-Ireland semi-final against Mayo with Cork still on their minds and were ambushed. More lessons learned.
Marc remembers that day, 11 August 1996, with some fondness, however. It was his first time ever in Croke Park. It was a maiden journey for Tomás too. He was playing for the Kerry minor team in the traditional curtain-raiser. At least the Ó Sé family had one victory to celebrate, though the minors later lost to Laois in the final. It was an appetiser for the Ó Sés for the feast that would follow over the following fourteen years. The next course was served with Darragh winning the first of his All-Ireland Championships in 1997, when Kerry beat Mayo in the final. He remembers: ‘Expectations weren’t high at the start of that year. There was a new following in Kerry of people who barely remembered the last time the county had won an All-Ireland. We didn’t realise how much it meant to the people until we had won it. I remember coming off the field that day and meeting Jack O’Shea and he was happier than I was. He had eight All-Irelands of his own, but he had waited a long time to enjoy a Kerry win as a supporter. That was special.’
He was becoming fully aware of the true meaning of being a Kerry footballer. ‘Growing up you know what the county jersey means. It is very special here in Kerry. And when you start wearing that jersey there is always pressure to win. Even when you do win there is pressure. There have been All-Irelands that we have won where we have been criticised here for not playing good football. You try to take no notice of it; it is part and parcel of playing for Kerry. At times you get fed up with it, but ultimately it is vitally important that there is so much interest in football in Kerry. I know in my heart and soul that the interest will never wane and that the pressure will always be there to do well and that is what drives you on. I think that is one of the reasons why we do not lose players. When you walk up the street on any day of the week there is always someone who wants to talk football. Maybe it’s the same in other counties, but it’s something special
here.’
Tomás joined Darragh in the senior squad during the winter of 1997. He recovered from an ankle injury early in 1998 in time to convince Páidí and the selectors that he was ready for promotion. For the opening round of the Munster Championship Tomás was selected at right full back. He was marking Aidan Dorgan of Cork. It was not his greatest experience. By half time he was withdrawn and would spend the rest of that summer on the bench. ‘It wasn’t the easiest start. I wasn’t a natural corner back. I never played in the position again so that tells its own story,’ he says with a smile. Some supporters had questioned his right to be selected. Tomás realised he would have to work hard to regain his place and prove it was rightfully his and not the gift of his uncle. A year later he took possession of the number five jersey. He never looked back. No one has questioned his right since.
Marc was chosen for the Kerry minors in 1998 and the three brothers were togged out for the first time together on 30 August that year for the All-Ireland semi-finals. Both the minor and senior teams lost, but the pattern for their adult lives had been set. Their lifestyles became absolutely hectic. The club, An Gaeltacht, decided to field a team in the Kerry Senior Championship, breaking from West Kerry. That added to the demands. Marc decided to take a break from football to concentrate on his studies in 1999.
By summer 2000 Tomás was proving to be just as valuable to the Kerry setup as his older brother. They retained the Munster title with comparative ease but then faced severe tests in the All-Ireland series. An emerging Armagh proved a real threat and only an injury-time pointed free from Maurice Fitzgerald earned Kerry a semi-final replay. The second game went to extra time. Oisín McConville kicked 1–9 for Armagh, Mike Frank Russell scored 2–3 for Kerry. The Kingdom won by 2–15 to 1–15 and qualified to meet Galway in the final. That ended in a draw as well, 0–14 each. The replay was football for the purist, fast and free flowing. Kerry won by 0–17 to 1–10. The medal collection was only beginning.
‘I suppose every player will say his first All-Ireland is the most memorable,’ says Tomás, ‘but for me 2000 was special because of the quality of the football played in the semi-final against Armagh and especially in the drawn and replayed finals against Galway. You had some outstanding footballers on the field in the final – on our side you had Séamus Moynihan, Darragh, Maurice Fitzgerald and Mike Frank [Russell]; Galway had Pádraic Joyce, Michael Donnellan and the Meehans. Those were two good footballing teams.’
By the end of 2000, having watched Darragh and Tomás win their first All-Ireland together, Marc was taking his own tentative steps back into the game with the Kerry under-21s. He had trials with the seniors, flirted on the edges of the squad in 2001 and by the time the National League started in 2002 a third Ó Sé was playing for Kerry.
The eldest brother, Fergal, had played minor and under-21 football for Kerry. He was called for senior trials and enjoyed a few outings in the National League in 1997 but never got the break necessary. That had some benefit for An Gaeltacht. Fergal began coaching the senior team with Séamus MacGearailt. They captured their first county title in 2001 and a second in 2003. The Ó Sés’ mother, Joan, spent many Sunday afternoons walking the roads around Árd an Bhóthair, avoiding radio and television, stopping in the local church to light a candle. She doesn’t watch her boys playing. She just wants to know they get home safely.
The club scene demanded a lot from the boys. An Gaeltacht won the Kerry Intermediate Championship in 1998. They had a bunch of extremely talented players – the Ó Sés, the MacGearailts and Dara Ó Cinnéide among them. The difficult decision to field a team in the Kerry Senior Championship in 1999 caused controversy and dissent. Some GAA folk in the Gaeltacht were unhappy that an amalgamated team represented the region rather than a number of individual clubs. But they went ahead. The first year was tough. ‘We had a lot of injuries,’ recalls Darragh, ‘and East Kerry gave us a hosing. Séamus Moynihan was outstanding and Johnny Crowley was at his peak.’
A year later they reached the county final, where they were beaten by Dr Crokes of Killarney, a team which contained the combined talents of Pat O’Shea, Connie Murphy, Noel O’Leary and a young kid named Colm Cooper. In their third
year playing Senior Championship football An Gaeltacht justified the decision to field their own senior team when they won the Kerry title. ‘We beat Austin Stacks in the final and that meant so much because Stacks was regarded as one of the best clubs in the county,’ Darragh explains.
‘If I have one regret it is that we partied too much after winning the final. It was a massive occasion for the club, for our families and neighbours, but we lost focus. Instead of looking at the bigger picture, like the bigger clubs would have done, we got carried away. The likes of Stacks or Nemo would immediately have looked at how they were going to take the next step. They would have started preparing immediately for the Munster Club Championship. By the time we started to get ready for it we were too late.’ Nemo Rangers beat them in the Munster final and went on to win the All-Ireland club title in March 2002. ‘I felt we had our best team in 2001 and if we were to win the All-Ireland that was the season to do it.’
They did reach the All-Ireland club final in 2004, where they lost to Caltra from Galway. Tomás describes that loss as the biggest disappointment of his career so far. ‘It is very difficult for a club to win a Kerry Championship and we were probably good enough to win an All-Ireland at that time. It is so hard for a small, rural club to compete at that level. You can only expect to play at that level for a few years and you have got to take your chances. We are back at intermediate level now. That is the lot of small clubs; you don’t have the supply of talent that the bigger towns will have.’
Back on the inter-county front, All-Ireland finals were also proving to be frustrating. In 2002 they re-grouped after losing the Munster semi-final to Cork a few days after the Ó Sés had buried their father. In a five-match sequence they trounced Wicklow, Fermanagh, Kildare, Galway and then Cork (by fifteen points) in the All-Ireland semi-final. ‘We played some really attractive football, with pace and intensity, and we were strong favourites going into the final. But Armagh were waiting for us. They ground us down,’ Darragh remembers.
‘We let ourselves down in the second half,’ says Marc.
It was a defeat from which they took time to recover. There was criticism of the team, questions about their worth. A year later they lost to Tyrone in the All-Ireland semi-final. Páidí’s tenure as manager was coming to an end. ‘It was a bad year on the field made worse by the fact that Páidí lost the position of manager,’ explains Marc. ‘It was very hard on the three of us when he went. But we had to adjust.’
Páidí ended up as Westmeath manager and guided them to a rare Leinster title. Back in Kerry his three nephews were collecting another Munster title, though they needed a replay to beat Limerick. Darragh would suffer an ankle injury in the All-Ireland semi-final that would force him to watch the final from the stands, but Kerry’s title chase would surely have been much more difficult but for his performance against Limerick in the drawn Munster final, one of the most memorable of his career. He watched with delight as Tomás and Marc helped Kerry to the county’s thirty-third All-Ireland success when they comfortably accounted for Mayo. Tomás’ form throughout 2004 earned him the GAA’s Footballer of the Year award.
The three played together in the next five finals, losing to Tyrone in 2005 and 2008, beating Mayo in 2006 and Cork in 2007 and 2009. ‘It was said that we couldn’t handle the Ulster teams, Armagh and Tyrone especially, but I don’t think there was any jinx,’ insists Darragh. ‘We were well beaten in a couple of games, but there were days when we had our chances and didn’t take them. That’s what happens in sport. Some day Kerry will beat Tyrone. In the same way Cork will beat Kerry in Croke Park one day. You hear all this talk about bad blood between Kerry and the Tyrone and Armagh lads. There wasn’t any. Those teams were fabulous for football. The interest levels they created were huge and they brought great colour to the Championship. I enjoyed playing against them and I have become great friends with lads like Peter Canavan and Kieran McGeeney.’
Marc reckons the 2009 triumph was ‘a massive highlight’. He continues: ‘I think we would all say that our first final was the most memorable simply because it was the first. But 2009 was special. We had come from a very low point during the season. We hadn’t been playing well during June and July. We were well beaten in the Munster final by Cork and we were being written off everywhere. There were times when it seemed that we were on the way out and we just managed to hold on. To turn it around like we did was some achievement.’
Darragh points to the return of Michael McCarthy to the team as a critical factor in the 2009 success. ‘Michael was a quiet character, you wouldn’t hear much from him, but he was one of the best footballers we had. Just look at what he did in 2009. He came back from two years out of football to play at that level. Very few players would have the ability to come back and do that and to have such a major role in winning an All-Ireland. Just look at the three big games we had in that Championship – Dublin, Meath and Cork in the final – he was one of our top three players in each one of them. It was an amazing thing to do, but he was one of the most natural footballers you could come across. He could be a tight-marking corner back, a centre half back, a midfielder. You could play him anywhere.’
Recalling their run through the qualifier series of games, Tomás is blunt: ‘We were very fortunate to survive and if fellas were being honest they would admit that. We could have lost to Longford and we should have lost to Sligo. The funny thing was that we knew at training that we weren’t far off the mark, that we were close to hitting our form. We just had to survive long enough to find it.’ Tomás himself was the centre of attention briefly when he and Colm Cooper were dropped for disciplinary reasons. ‘There was a lot of stuff being said that we were arguing and all that; not true. We dealt with everything quietly and in our own way. There was never much of a problem, just the normal run of things that will happen when you have a large group of individuals together.
‘We felt we were getting things right by the time we beat Antrim. But we didn’t expect what happened against Dublin [when Kerry enjoyed as seventeen-point victory]. We did play well and got out of the blocks quickly. But Dublin had a big off-day. After what had happened during June and July we were just grateful that we had got through it.’
Tomás suspected on the night of the All-Ireland victory that Darragh might not return for another year. The rumour mill suggested Tomás himself might take a break. But when the squad convened on Portugal’s Algarve in April for some warm-weather training the familiar figure had returned. The Ó Sé numbers might be smaller, but there will be additions to this story.
* * *
Darragh Ó Sé reflects on the many changes he has seen since he first pulled on the Kerry jersey way back when the county was struggling to regain its status as a football paradise. Some of those changes are good, some are not so good. ‘I always regarded it as a privilege to play for Kerry. I loved winning. And losing from time to time made you appreciate the good days even more. It was tough at times but there was a great social side to it all – team holidays, All Star tours where you would meet with other players from other counties. You would often hear things about me not getting on with the Cork lads and we would have a good laugh about it when we would meet on tour.
‘Back in the mid-1990s the media coverage wasn’t as big. The increase in coverage was obviously good for the game but it also had a downside. It became very tabloidy and intrusive. They forgot this was still an amateur game. You see people getting in the papers for all the wrong reasons.
‘Inter-county football has become a very serious business. The good old days of playing a game and going for a few pints afterwards are nearly gone; they are certainly curtailed. I’m glad I experienced that side of it; meeting lads from the other counties and getting to know them. That is gone to some extent. You don’t socialise with other players as much any more and I think that is a poor reflection on us. That should be encouraged in some way. I know and understand the need for discipline and that the demands are greater now. I don’t even have the
answers as to how you make it work both ways, but it is sad to see it going. I was brought up to play the game hard and fair. You took knocks and you gave them and at the end of the game you shook hands. I think it’s a pity that lads don’t mix now. I have made great friends with lads from other counties that I still meet up with from time to time.
‘The game has definitely speeded up. There has been tinkering with the rules and I understand that there is a constant need to make improvements. But by and large the rules are okay. It is the application of the rules and consistency in application that is the problem. We have too many variables. I also don’t think the referees are given enough respect; they need to be treated better across the board by County Boards and at national level. Pay them well, look after them, because they are a crucial part of our game. I was no angel myself in the way I behaved with referees. We all need to play our part. This is a major part of our game that is flawed at the minute. Referees need greater recognition. Referees need an incentive scheme, something for them to aim at. And I would reward them; incorporate them when awards are being given out. We need to make them feel part of the whole thing. We need to create an environment where referees are encouraged to improve their own standards. The inconsistency causes so many problems. No one knows what is right and that frustrates players and then the referees get frustrated.