Treating a win like a loss

KILLINAN END

It is hardly groundbreaking to point out the huge increase in media coverage of Gaelic games in recent decades. Between radio, television, podcasts, as well as of course the print media there's an extraordinary amount of opinion and reportage to suit all tastes. Maybe out of necessity much of this commentary has become safer and more inoffensive than ever. County team managers often err on the side of blandness when giving interviews, which in fairness does not necessarily mean managers being dishonest. Perhaps they are now naturally immunised against the possibility of giving offence.

Some forty years ago life was very different in all its aspects. In media terms it was a time when newspapers in their printed form were king and if you didn't buy the newspaper, you didn't read the news. This was an era of real-time non-viral media activity. Of course, that didn't stop controversy blowing up or indeed semantic contortionists attempting to stir the pot. It was also a year when Tipperary headed for Leeside for a rematch of the previous year’s Centenary Munster hurling final.

Another sign of how things have surely changed is that in those days playing Cork in the relatively new Páirc Uí Chaoimh was considered a task of extremely daunting proportions. Despite the mere handful of championship games they had played at the new venue since it was opened in 1976 the Rebel County had been granted an aura of virtual invincibility. This was the context behind considerable misgivings at Tipp’s decision to play Cork at this venue. The split nature of opinion on the matter is evident from the fact that at a County Board meeting some weeks earlier 35 people voted - 18 to enter into a home and away agreement with Cork, 17 opposing. The subsequent defeat did little to placate those who thought it was a bad idea to concede this advantage to a team already in a dominant position in Munster.

But whatever mini-controversy emanated from the choice of venue was only in the ha’penny place compared with the fall-out from an interview given by Cork’s coach, Justin McCarthy, to the Cork Examiner in the week after the Munster Final. The match itself had been intense and competitive with little enough in it until a stream of late second-half Cork points opened up a decisive gap – 4-10 to 4-9 morphed into a 4-17 to 4-11 final scoreline. Media reaction to the game implied little more than a competitive game which Cork deserved to win. McCarthy’s commentary on Tipperary’s “toughness” suggested that Tipp’s defence set out to roughhouse Cork’s forwards at the expense of getting on with the game. While hardly entirely without foundation this approach was not necessarily reflected in the immediate post-match analysis. Nothing had happened that couldn’t be explained away with quick reference to what our fathers warned us about the limitations of parlour hurlers.

His comments were all well and good up to a point until Justin McCarthy claimed to have foreseen this on the basis of what Tipperary teams got up to in the 1950s and ‘60s. A good sceptic would have a natural suspicion around this in the first instance since McCarthy acknowledged that he barely remembered the ‘50s, and of course was himself part of Cork teams which took severe beatings at the hands of Tipperary in the 1960s. Not exactly what might be considered an independent observer. Defeats have to be explained away, and bad defeats invite bad explanations.

However, the suggestion the teams which included Liam Devaney, Donie Nealon, Jimmy Doyle, Mike Roche, Mick Burns, to mention just some, relied seventy per cent on physicality was somewhere between laughable and downright offensive for many in the Premier County. Reaction was such that Cork’s County Board issued a statement distancing itself from McCarthy’s remarks, another unimaginable departure these days. Anyone in Tipp exercised by perceived denigration of great teams will have been satisfied with McCarthy’s mature reflections in his autobiography when he was unstinting in his praise of those Tipp teams.

What has gone under the radar was the broader commentary in the interview which may have damaged McCarthy far more than any arrows aimed at Tipperary. Invited to take a coach’s critical stance on Cork’s players, McCarthy rolled up the sleeves and tore into the task. Ger Cunningham, he said, was “slow to get off his line” and “not at his best with a low ball hopping in front of him” (He must be glad Jake Morris wasn’t around in those days). Tomás Mulcahy’s striking left much to be desired and even Tom Cashman, at that stage a veteran of successful Cork teams, needed work on his left side.

Whether their next opponents took stock of this veritable dossier on the Cork team is unknown but in a semi-final of biblical rain a few weeks later Galway did beat the team that, according to Raymond Smith the Sunday after the Munster Final, “look certain to win the All-Ireland”. It was Justin McCarthy’s last dance on the big stage with Cork. Maybe the Cork Board’s distancing statement had motives beyond defending Tipperary’s reputation. To what extent this loose-lipped interview, particularly its comments on Cork players, may have influenced his future in red is one for a few winter pints.