Who Is Your Favourite GAA Personality From Outside Your Native County?

sheff the ref · 20-11-2012 12:14am

Not a chance.....Do you want to get me arrested!!!

Straight Talker wrote: »

Sheff The Reff can i buy a copy of the Tom Ryan uncut audio cd!

Straight Talker · 20-11-2012 12:20am

sheff the ref wrote: »

Not a chance.....Do you want to get me arrested!!!

I don't suppose you ever tried to persuade Timber Tom to release an autobiography!

sheff the ref · 20-11-2012 12:24am

I am retired from writing books myself, but I think an autobiography from Tom would be a right job if he could get every word through the legal team of the publishers!!!!

Straight Talker wrote: »

I don't suppose you ever tried to persuade Timber Tom to release an autobiography!

Straight Talker · 20-11-2012 12:24am

Here's an interview with Timber Tom from a few years ago.

The Leader Interview..with Tom Ryan

Published on Thursday 19 February 2009 12:23

TOM Ryan sinks into a couch at reception in the Woodfield House Hotel, clasping his hands over the front of his suit, as I make several unsuccessful attempts to find a room where my dictaphone won't be drowned out by the talk of afternoon drinkers.

"Take your time, John," he reassures me, possibly sensing my panic. "I'm in no rush."

Having time on his hands is a new experience for the man still best remembered for taking Limerick agonisingly close to two All-Ireland hurling victories in 1994 and 1996.

However, before he became Limerick hurling's almost-saviour and prior to his forays into the political and media spheres, TomRyan was a well-known face in the city for his everday presence at the Electrical Rewind store.

Fifty years after he entered the Thomas Street motor repair shop – as a 15-year-old looking for summer work – Ryan has decided to retire. "I actually don't realise 50 years are gone. I can remember starting there like it was last week, cycling the five or six miles in from home," he says, after a quiet corner is found. "It was and still is a fantastically wellrun company and that all stemmed from its founder, Dan Lehane. He was one of the most skilled craftsmen I ever came across. It's when you think of the changes that have taken place though, that it starts to feel a long time.

"But back then you had the old traditional companies. There was a Limerick Steamship company, the coal yards, tanneries, clothing factories and the bacon factories which were huge for the region." As is his style, upon mentioning the decline of Limerick's old traditional companies, Ryan straight away offers his opinion on why they are no more.

"At the time – as has always been the case in Limerick – unions were radically strong and work policies weren't conducive to being competitive. Families controlled the unions and the unions controlled the docks."

As a man with 50 years of unbroken service in a city-centre company, a witness to both booms and busts, how does he think the current recession compares with those of the past? "There's no comparison between what's happening now and back in previous recessions, it's worse than ever," he says.

"There's talk of building infrastructure and re-educating but we have reasonable infrastructure and we are a quite highly skilled nation. Just like before though, we're just not competitive.

"I quiver when I hear Brian Cowen say we should all play our part because we can't all play our part. We don't have the power, and we're paying the price for the incompetence of those who do.

"I believe that if you're elected it's a tremendous honour to be a member of your country's parliament, but people aren't representing. The bullying with the party whip that's been going on in recent years is a disgrace and all TDs are doing is just toeing the party line." Ryan made his own attempts to represent the people in the 2002 general election when he won 1,148 first-preference stock as a hurler had increased but the inclination towards coaching had also developed and become more evident to those around him. "In one year, I played junior, senior and under 21s for Limerick and I also captained Ballybrown. I captained us to win a county championship in 1967 – when I would have been 23 – and at that point I already had a bit of a coaching role with the team. Frank Hanley was a huge influence on me then, he was a great leader."

Tom has many fond memories of playing with his beloved Ballybrown over the years but the real golden years, for him, were when he hung up his boots in 1983 and took up full time coaching with his club. "I always had tremendous respect for my teammates and I'd like to think they had it for me too, so the transition was fairly smooth." Ryan's years over Ballybrown were an example of collective resilience.

After reaching a county final in their first year, they were hammered, according to the coach. In 1987, again they reached the final but again lost, this time by only a point. In 1989, third time proved lucky as Ballybrown won the county final and then went on to beat Sixmilebridge in a Munster final that Ryan describes as one of the best games he's ever seen in the Gaelic Grounds.

They reached the All-Ireland club final that year but came second best. After reaching – and losing – yet another county final in 1990, Ryan led Ballybrown to another county title in 1991 at which point he began to look like a serious contender for the county job. He had to wait until 1993, however, for that call. "Limerick hurling was in the doldrums; it was a shambles, being quite honest about it.

Myself, Rory Kiely and Liam Lenihan were chosen as selectors and the two of them picked me as manager. Within 12 months we were Munster champions and in Croke Park for an All- Ireland final." He credits much of his coaching success to Dave Mahedy who worked with him on the county team for three years and with Ballybrown for six years. "He was a hard taskmaster and didn't tolerate fools, but my God, he was a fantastic coach."

Limerick's defeat – snatched from the jaws of victory – still stings for many supporters who were in Croke Park in September 1994. More so – for many – than the one-point defeat to Wexford two years later.

"In 1994 we lost the game because we changed tactics in the last 10 minutes. We'd dominated the game and thought we'd it won, so the players started bollocking around," he claims. In the lost final of 1996, he felt the referee on the day was to blame for disallowing, what he saw, as a goal which would have proven vital if allowed. Ryan believes, however, that the two finals – and the unsuccessful Munster campaign in between – was only his side getting started and that Limerick would have undoubtedly won All-Irelands if he had been given a fair chance."

He is currently toying with the idea of putting his name in the ring for this year's local elections.

"I've been contacted by a number of people from outside the political arena. They think that a new face wouldn't do any harm as local councils seem to have removed themselves from reality and the people.

If I were to go, it would be as an Independent." Tom Ryan freely admits to getting a kick from airing his views to an audience and being seen as a public figure.

As well as being a regular contributor to a number of different newspapers over the years, he also had his own show on pirate radio station RLO. "I love the media, it gave me a outlet to express my views. I believe papers are still a bit too tied up politically, particularly local papers in Ireland. RLO was great too, we had a good show there and people liked it. I'm sure we annoyed the odd person too, but I never ended up in court anyway."

But while he loves media work, his regular work and his various political adventures, for him none of them compare to his experiences in hurling. In all likelihood without the hurling, opportunities in media and politics wouldn't have been so plentiful.

"I don't remember it not being a big part of my life. When we were growing up in Cooper Hill, we'd bring hurleys with us to school in Tervoe and puck a ball around on the way to school, at break, lunch and on the way home too." In Ballybrown, Tom was known as a handy hurler but, he says, even at a young age he was keen to manage players. "Even when I was about 10, if there was a team needed to play a match against another group of young fellas, I'd go around and gather up my pals. I think I always had a bit of a negotiator in me too."

By the time he reached adulthood, his Mark Foley, McDonagh, the Nashes and I had more young fellas coming along the line for years to come. Back then, every game was a knockout match, a final, and we won 14 championship games out of 17; that's some record no matter what way you look at it." "Enemies" in the county board are to blame for his being ousted, he claims.

Animosity between Ryan and Limerick's hurling authorities was again evident in September when he threatened to take legal action over the process of selection for a new hurling manager.

As a candidate, he felt he didn't have a fair chance as some members of the committee were "compromised". "In any walk of life, people will think that a task is easy when they're not doing it themselves and it's easy for them to pick out your mistakes in hindsight. We got beaten in the Championship by Tipp in '97 but we won the league and still I was kicked out."

Despite his misgivings about the selection process for a Limerick manager, Ryan says he has great faith in the new Limerick manager, Justin McCarthy. "I'd be very supportive of Justin, I like Justin. He was a victim of player power in Waterford and he got a right raw deal. He was a great hurler himself, great tactician, everything that we need in Limerick if we can get the right response from the players," says Ryan.

Pride, he adds, must be restored however and in order to do that Justin McCarthy must tackle the drinking culture which he says has crippled Limerick hurling for years. "He'll have to get on top of it. There was no drinking culture in my day because I didn't tolerate it but subsequent managers turned a blind eye to it for years. You don't have a chance unless you're disciplined and you have to respect your county jersey. When I had Limerick, the image of Limerick was fierce important to me, and it still is."

C'mere Sheff The Reff i'll give you 200 euros for the Timber Tom uncut album!Do you accept credit cards?

sheff the ref · 20-11-2012 12:29am

If you gave me 200 Grand for it, I wouldnt part with it

Straight Talker wrote: »

Here's an interview with Timber Tom from a few years ago.

The Leader Interview..with Tom Ryan

Published on Thursday 19 February 2009 12:23

TOM Ryan sinks into a couch at reception in the Woodfield House Hotel, clasping his hands over the front of his suit, as I make several unsuccessful attempts to find a room where my dictaphone won't be drowned out by the talk of afternoon drinkers.

"Take your time, John," he reassures me, possibly sensing my panic. "I'm in no rush."

Having time on his hands is a new experience for the man still best remembered for taking Limerick agonisingly close to two All-Ireland hurling victories in 1994 and 1996.

However, before he became Limerick hurling's almost-saviour and prior to his forays into the political and media spheres, TomRyan was a well-known face in the city for his everday presence at the Electrical Rewind store.

Fifty years after he entered the Thomas Street motor repair shop – as a 15-year-old looking for summer work – Ryan has decided to retire. "I actually don't realise 50 years are gone. I can remember starting there like it was last week, cycling the five or six miles in from home," he says, after a quiet corner is found. "It was and still is a fantastically wellrun company and that all stemmed from its founder, Dan Lehane. He was one of the most skilled craftsmen I ever came across. It's when you think of the changes that have taken place though, that it starts to feel a long time.

"But back then you had the old traditional companies. There was a Limerick Steamship company, the coal yards, tanneries, clothing factories and the bacon factories which were huge for the region." As is his style, upon mentioning the decline of Limerick's old traditional companies, Ryan straight away offers his opinion on why they are no more.

"At the time – as has always been the case in Limerick – unions were radically strong and work policies weren't conducive to being competitive. Families controlled the unions and the unions controlled the docks."

As a man with 50 years of unbroken service in a city-centre company, a witness to both booms and busts, how does he think the current recession compares with those of the past? "There's no comparison between what's happening now and back in previous recessions, it's worse than ever," he says.

"There's talk of building infrastructure and re-educating but we have reasonable infrastructure and we are a quite highly skilled nation. Just like before though, we're just not competitive.

"I quiver when I hear Brian Cowen say we should all play our part because we can't all play our part. We don't have the power, and we're paying the price for the incompetence of those who do.

"I believe that if you're elected it's a tremendous honour to be a member of your country's parliament, but people aren't representing. The bullying with the party whip that's been going on in recent years is a disgrace and all TDs are doing is just toeing the party line." Ryan made his own attempts to represent the people in the 2002 general election when he won 1,148 first-preference stock as a hurler had increased but the inclination towards coaching had also developed and become more evident to those around him. "In one year, I played junior, senior and under 21s for Limerick and I also captained Ballybrown. I captained us to win a county championship in 1967 – when I would have been 23 – and at that point I already had a bit of a coaching role with the team. Frank Hanley was a huge influence on me then, he was a great leader."

Tom has many fond memories of playing with his beloved Ballybrown over the years but the real golden years, for him, were when he hung up his boots in 1983 and took up full time coaching with his club. "I always had tremendous respect for my teammates and I'd like to think they had it for me too, so the transition was fairly smooth." Ryan's years over Ballybrown were an example of collective resilience.

After reaching a county final in their first year, they were hammered, according to the coach. In 1987, again they reached the final but again lost, this time by only a point. In 1989, third time proved lucky as Ballybrown won the county final and then went on to beat Sixmilebridge in a Munster final that Ryan describes as one of the best games he's ever seen in the Gaelic Grounds.

They reached the All-Ireland club final that year but came second best. After reaching – and losing – yet another county final in 1990, Ryan led Ballybrown to another county title in 1991 at which point he began to look like a serious contender for the county job. He had to wait until 1993, however, for that call. "Limerick hurling was in the doldrums; it was a shambles, being quite honest about it.

Myself, Rory Kiely and Liam Lenihan were chosen as selectors and the two of them picked me as manager. Within 12 months we were Munster champions and in Croke Park for an All- Ireland final." He credits much of his coaching success to Dave Mahedy who worked with him on the county team for three years and with Ballybrown for six years. "He was a hard taskmaster and didn't tolerate fools, but my God, he was a fantastic coach."

Limerick's defeat – snatched from the jaws of victory – still stings for many supporters who were in Croke Park in September 1994. More so – for many – than the one-point defeat to Wexford two years later.

"In 1994 we lost the game because we changed tactics in the last 10 minutes. We'd dominated the game and thought we'd it won, so the players started bollocking around," he claims. In the lost final of 1996, he felt the referee on the day was to blame for disallowing, what he saw, as a goal which would have proven vital if allowed. Ryan believes, however, that the two finals – and the unsuccessful Munster campaign in between – was only his side getting started and that Limerick would have undoubtedly won All-Irelands if he had been given a fair chance."

He is currently toying with the idea of putting his name in the ring for this year's local elections.

"I've been contacted by a number of people from outside the political arena. They think that a new face wouldn't do any harm as local councils seem to have removed themselves from reality and the people.

If I were to go, it would be as an Independent." Tom Ryan freely admits to getting a kick from airing his views to an audience and being seen as a public figure.

As well as being a regular contributor to a number of different newspapers over the years, he also had his own show on pirate radio station RLO. "I love the media, it gave me a outlet to express my views. I believe papers are still a bit too tied up politically, particularly local papers in Ireland. RLO was great too, we had a good show there and people liked it. I'm sure we annoyed the odd person too, but I never ended up in court anyway."

But while he loves media work, his regular work and his various political adventures, for him none of them compare to his experiences in hurling. In all likelihood without the hurling, opportunities in media and politics wouldn't have been so plentiful.

"I don't remember it not being a big part of my life. When we were growing up in Cooper Hill, we'd bring hurleys with us to school in Tervoe and puck a ball around on the way to school, at break, lunch and on the way home too." In Ballybrown, Tom was known as a handy hurler but, he says, even at a young age he was keen to manage players. "Even when I was about 10, if there was a team needed to play a match against another group of young fellas, I'd go around and gather up my pals. I think I always had a bit of a negotiator in me too."

By the time he reached adulthood, his Mark Foley, McDonagh, the Nashes and I had more young fellas coming along the line for years to come. Back then, every game was a knockout match, a final, and we won 14 championship games out of 17; that's some record no matter what way you look at it." "Enemies" in the county board are to blame for his being ousted, he claims.

Animosity between Ryan and Limerick's hurling authorities was again evident in September when he threatened to take legal action over the process of selection for a new hurling manager.

As a candidate, he felt he didn't have a fair chance as some members of the committee were "compromised". "In any walk of life, people will think that a task is easy when they're not doing it themselves and it's easy for them to pick out your mistakes in hindsight. We got beaten in the Championship by Tipp in '97 but we won the league and still I was kicked out."

Despite his misgivings about the selection process for a Limerick manager, Ryan says he has great faith in the new Limerick manager, Justin McCarthy. "I'd be very supportive of Justin, I like Justin. He was a victim of player power in Waterford and he got a right raw deal. He was a great hurler himself, great tactician, everything that we need in Limerick if we can get the right response from the players," says Ryan.

Pride, he adds, must be restored however and in order to do that Justin McCarthy must tackle the drinking culture which he says has crippled Limerick hurling for years. "He'll have to get on top of it. There was no drinking culture in my day because I didn't tolerate it but subsequent managers turned a blind eye to it for years. You don't have a chance unless you're disciplined and you have to respect your county jersey. When I had Limerick, the image of Limerick was fierce important to me, and it still is."

C'mere Sheff The Reff i'll give you 200 euros for the Timber Tom uncut album!Do you accept credit cards?

Straight Talker · 20-11-2012 12:39am

sheff the ref wrote: »

If you gave me 200 Grand for it, I wouldnt part with it

Well thanks for the book Sheff.He never get's old Tom.He gets funnier every time i read Unlimited Heartbreak.I loved the part of the book when he was telling you how he got the Limerick job.I didn't go around canvassing for votes while the other fellas wore the tires off their cars going around looking for votes!

btw I also loved the story about that county board meeting.Gerry Bennis the man who couldn't be there until the end of august was the first in the door!

sheff the ref · 20-11-2012 12:44am

Laughing out loud as I am reading this!!!!! Tis one thing reading those stories, but it was unbelieveable being told them.

My favourite Tom Ryan story from the book was the one about the time the County Board tried to shaft his Liaison Officer Charlie Hanly in 1995, but then again I have the uncut version.

Straight Talker wrote: »

Well thanks for the book Sheff.He never get's old Tom.He gets funnier every time i read Unlimited Heartbreak.I loved the part of the book when he was telling you how he got the Limerick job.I didn't go around canvassing for votes while the other fellas wore the tires off their cars going around looking for votes!

btw I also loved the story about that county board meeting.Gerry Bennis the man who couldn't be there until the end of august was the first in the door!

Straight Talker · 20-11-2012 12:54am

sheff the ref wrote: »

Laughing out loud as I am reading this!!!!! Tis one thing reading those stories, but it was unbelieveable being told them.

My favourite Tom Ryan story from the book was the one about the time the County Board tried to shaft his Liaison Officer Charlie Hanly in 1995, but then again I have the uncut version.

I really loved the one where he wanted to be called before croke park after Limerick lost to Clare in 95.I was hoping they would call me to appear in front of them.I would go in there and say i don't give a rattling **** about any of ye here.I will play the video and show ye what happened.

Oh and im a very easily offended Cork fan.Yet when Tom was talking about Mike Houlihan being fit for the Cork match in 96 i was laughing out loud after the way he finished the paragraph by saying he went down to Cork the week after and walked all over the *****.:pac:

sheff the ref · 20-11-2012 1:05am

We were discussing that Cork line on The Free Kick recently. Probably the greatest Sporting line of all time

Straight Talker wrote: »

I really loved the one where he wanted to be called before croke park after Limerick lost to Clare in 95.I was hoping they would call me to appear in front of them.I would go in there and say i don't give a rattling **** about any of ye here.I will play the video and show ye what happened.

Oh and im a very easily offended Cork fan.Yet when Tom was talking about Mike Houlihan being fit for the Cork match in 96 i was laughing out loud after the way he finished the paragraph by saying he went down to Cork the week after and walked all over the *****.:pac:

8k2q1gfcz9s5d4 · 20-11-2012 11:19am

Sean Kelly.

Alphonso · 25-11-2012 6:33pm

Straight Talker wrote: »

I already mentioned John Mullane.Im surprised that no ones mentioned Conor Counihan yet a man of the upmost decency and integrity Limericks Stephen McDonagh would also be a fella i have plenty of time for.

Oh alright then, CC as well. But that gives me TWO bleedin' langers in my list - it's just not on, y'he-ar! Anyway Counihan is the spitting image of a mate of mine who's mother is from Cork - it's uncanny every time I see him

drumslate · 30-11-2012 11:55am

Paul Galvin... he gets a lot of negative attention but it doesn't phase him. He does his own thing, he's not afraid to get stuck in and I think he's a great player!

Straight Talker · 30-05-2013 10:02pm

Im sorry for bumping this thread but am i the only that think's an audience with Tom Ryan would be some evening!:pac:

TheCoolWay · 30-05-2013 11:05pm

Cake Curran!

walrusgumble · 31-05-2013 12:18am

Paidi OSe, the Westmeath documentary confirmed it, along with his books (brilliant story about his time in the Guards, falling asleep in a field in Limerick which was being prepared for the Pope coming over)

Ja Fallon of Galway

Willie Joe Padden of Mayo

Davy Fitz of Clare, just because he can some how annoy the hell out of people,

Johnny Pilkington of Offaly, no qualms having a few smokes and a drink a day or two before a game

John Mullane of Waterford, adored by his county, gets a bit too emotional in a game which might not always be helpful, and explode at any second, for good and bad, constant look of being sunburnt

I know he was not a player, but, Marty Morrissey. Always very polite and friendly if you bump into him. The head on him

Sod it, I don't care if he is from my county, Shane Curran: For Roscommon and Athlone Town FC ( always man enough to take a penalty and score in those scary regulation/promotion play offs)

Jerry McInerney The Mullet from Galway - a protype for the future model, Sean Og O Halpin

The late but great Eamonn Coleman of Derry

And of course Joe Brolly, one of few men to properly celebrate after scoring a goal

Lemlin · 31-05-2013 11:40am

I always find Kevin McStay a very likable pundit.

In terms of players, it's sad to see Dermot Earley go. He always gave so much for Kildare.

KevIRL · 31-05-2013 12:47pm

Tomkelly99

Straight Talker · 16-12-2013 5:04pm

I don't think i ever shared this.I have great time for Richie Bennis because if you cut that man up then green blood would come out of him!I think people went over the top in their criticism of him over that remark about Dan Shanahan.The man was on a high after his team weren't given a chance by anyone in the lead up to that match against Waterford.It was just a heat of the moment thing and Richie later expressed his regret that it was Waterford that Limerick had to beat that day not Cork Kilkenny and Tipp.I think Waterford were tired that day because they were out for three weekends in a row and the games with Cork took a lot of them.I think if the match was put back a week then Waterford would have won but Richie had his lad's primed for battle!They also didn't do that bad against Kilkenny in the final even if they never looked like winning it.Richie is a good man who was harshly treated by the Limerick county board.That clip of him gatecrashing Babs interview with RTE is gold.:pac:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vggfWRrNHZQ

Don't worry about the blank screen just click watch on youtube and your good to go.

thinkstoomuch1 · 16-12-2013 9:45pm

Griffins World
Tuesday, 20th February 2007

Driven by a fascination for elite sport, Clare’s Tony Griffin will aim to make headlines rather than read them today

It wasn’t a typical weekend in Tony Griffin’s life, which isn’t to say it was untypical of him. In the afternoon he scored 1-2 for Clare against Waterford in the final game of the 2005 qualifiers; at three o’clock the next morning he drove to Dublin airport to catch a red-eye flight, day-tripping to the Tour de France. A minibus had been booked to take the panel drinking in west Clare after the match but he let it go. His Monday would start as his teammates drained the last from Sunday’s glass.
He flew to Lyon and drove to Grenoble where Tuesday’s stage would begin. His flights had been booked at the last minute and without a bed to be had he slept in the back of his hired car. He rose early the next morning to get a good pitch on the mountainside. As he stood there the Tour rushed his senses: the great chaos of crowds and carnival, the stifling heat and relentless hype; the great, tainted struggle and the peleton of altered bodies.

“Up close it’s scary how lean they are. They look like machines pedalling along. I was a lot more naive last year. I’ve read a lot of things about the Tour and cycling in general since that has opened my eyes. But when you’re there you get caught up in it. It’s what we all aspire to, enduring that much pain, being in that physical shape, being at the top of your sport.”

He promised himself he’d go, so he went. He was curious, so he went. It would have been easier to go drinking but then he would still have been curious. It was only a little thing but it was true to him nonetheless.

All his life his curiosity and his ambitions and his aspirations have taken him places. Two years ago he reached a crossroads and the path least travelled didn’t even seem to be mapped. He had an honours degree in economics from UCG and had spent two years on the road as a rep for a medical company but he wasn’t fulfilled in his job and for a guy with his drive coasting was the wrong gear.

Sports science was his passion. There were courses in Ireland and England but a Canadian friend, Travis McDonagh, drew his attention to a degree at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia: a bachelor of science in human kinetics was the title of the course, with an accent on sports medicine, sports psychology and biomechanics. Perfect. So he raised the funds, rearranged his life and quit the comfort of the world he knew.

“If I had a return flight in the first week or two I’d have taken it. I came from a situation where you go into every shop and people know you — and it’s funny, I never liked that. I used to stay away from all that kind of thing. But you go over there and no one knows you. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done. You had to develop a level of confidence when you met new people because nobody had heard of hurling.”

The university produced high-performance athletes in a range of disciplines and Griffin filled his plate at the buffet. He joined the track and field club in his first term to work on his explosive power, did specialised plyometrics on Saturdays, sparred in the boxing ring three times a week, shared digs with one of Canada’s leading shot putters and took an evening job at the ice hockey rink. His mind was open and curiosity filled it.

Naturally, hurling travelled with him to Canada and his conscience was his drill sergeant there as it would be at home. He did his stamina work on Citadel Hill, a climb that made the training hill in Shannon seem like a drumlin, and his ball work wherever and whenever he could. Between September 2004 and April 2005 he made nine trips home for hurling matches and when he returned to college last autumn the pattern began again.

Once, it was hairy. Griffin’s club, Ballyea, were playing Wolfe Tones in a relegation semi-final. To arrive on time he needed to make a connection in Boston but his flight from Halifax was delayed. He pleaded at the check-in desk.

“‘What’s so important that you have to get home tomorrow?’ she said to me, ‘all of these other people have reasons as well.’ I said to myself, ‘I’ll have to pull this one out of the bag,’ so I said to her, ‘I’m actually getting married’.”

Ten minutes later she came back with a ticket to Toronto and a connection to Boston. He was upgraded to first class and when Griffin took his seat Michael Stipe, the lead singer from REM, was sitting alongside. Stipe declared his love for Ireland and showed Griffin his Cladagh ring to prove it. “Nicest, most down-to-earth fella.”

He got home with three hours to spare and Frank Lohan cleaned him out. The relegation final was a week later and he hung around; they won.

At the time his father was in the final stages of lung cancer. Jerome had never smoked but tearing down and rebuilding British train stations in the 1960s had exposed him to asbestos and, ultimately, that was as bad as 40 fags a day. “He was at the game and that was the last time I saw my father out of hospital. That was the last game he saw, which was great because he was a great club man. He brought me to the airport the following morning and he was weak at that stage.

“I came back again in November and had a great week — he was very poor, but it was a great week to get with him. Reports weren’t good and on the morning of one of my Christmas exams my sister rang to say that he’d passed away. So I came back and I just had a feeling that I couldn’t face all the travelling back and forth again. My mother was on her own and I could see she wasn’t looking forward to me going back. Anthony Daly [Clare manager] said to me, ‘Is there any chance you could defer a section of your course?’ And I said, ‘Definitely.’ I go with my gut feeling and I knew it was the right thing to do.”

SINCE the beginning of the year he has lived the life of an elite athlete. It was the faith he always observed; all he lacked was the time for worship. The farm at home doesn’t take much minding, so he trains and rests and trains and rests. Ger Loughnane used tell the Clare players that they should read as much as they could about other sports and in the past few months Griffin has ploughed through the books he’s been gathering for years. He will return to Canada in September and he knows that he will never have this precious time again.

Loughnane’s last year as Clare manager was Griffin’s first on the panel. Straight out of minor, he was a gangly, unfurnished colt. Loughnane was good to him but the whole culture of training teams was different, even then, only six years ago.

“When I joined the panel first I was the same height as I am now but I was a stone and a half lighter and there was no advice there. I remember sitting across from Loughnane at dinner one night and he said, ‘You’d want to be doing a bit of weights or something’ — that was it. It was up to yourself, kind of.”

By chance he struck up a friendship with Travis McDonagh, a chiropractor in Ennis, who devised a weights programme for him. The Clare panel had access to a hotel gym and during Griffin’s first year players remember seeing his name signed in for a session on Christmas Day. He was still learning the value of rest.

While he was in college in Galway the former Clare team doctor Colm Flynn set him up with Francie Barrett’s trainer, Chick Gillen, in the Westside gym. That was his first contact with boxing. It was good for endurance and it was good for movement and Griffin was looking for anything that would give him an edge.

“In my first year on the panel [2000] we were beaten by Tipp and it took me three or four months to get over the training, I was so knackered. I was young [19], I wasn’t ready for it yet. I was so eager to make the panel and I knew I’d make it after a few months. The team was the next thing and I wouldn’t have been near ready. You know, there are no guarantees. You earn it yourself, you earn the fact that you’re going to make it over time.”

For the first round of the 2002 championship he was ready and Clare pitched him in at centre-forward. He looted Tipp for six points from seven shots. In any context it was a sensational debut. Clare lost but reached the All-Ireland final through the qualifiers and with 17 points to his name Griffin was the outstanding newcomer of the championship.

“It’s funny, when you’re going well you don’t want to get carried away with things and when you’re not going well it’s all you obsess about. I didn’t enjoy that season because I was saying, ‘Now, don’t get carried away, concentrate on what comes next’.

“The huge pity is that we didn’t bring any competitive edge to the All-Ireland final, there was no fight whatsoever. To be honest, I think we were happy having got there — some of us were maybe. I know I tried my damnedest not to get carried away with the things that come the week before . . . We didn’t go out believing we could win and that’s the way it played itself out.”

Griffin took Peter Barry for a point early on but it wasn’t his best performance of the summer and it wasn’t his worst. Ask him to reflect on it now and he doesn’t fib or flinch. “I was average, average at best. The first thing you have to analyse is, ‘Did I do my job?’ And that day I didn’t do my job. Peter Barry didn’t catch any ball but I didn’t catch any ball, either. I watched the video afterwards and I had more of an input than I thought but nowhere near what I’m capable of.”

For the team that All-Ireland final was neither an end nor a beginning. Every year since they’ve been there or thereabouts, knocked back and bouncing back. Three years in a row they’ve failed in the first round of the Munster championship; three years in a row they’ve flourished in the qualifiers. They believed they would beat Cork seven weeks ago, believed it with every atom of their being, and they were beaten out the gate. How could they let it happen again? “I know hindsight is 20:20 but looking back on the whole day we weren’t ready for the battle that was coming. We expected to produce it, we expected to flick the switch and we’d battle for it. Two weeks before we’d played well against Galway and maybe we did go in complacent. We actually trained better in the three weeks after the Cork game than we had in the three weeks before. We thrashed it out on the Wednesday night afterwards and we trained better from then to the Limerick game. I think we fooled ourselves going into the Cork game.

“After the Cork game if you were to believe what was said within Clare you wouldn’t get up the following morning. You definitely wouldn’t have the balls to go on and do something. We still need to answer some of the questions about performing when we need it most but I think we’re a better team than we were 12 months ago. I think I’m a better player than I was this time last year, no doubt about it — more consistent in training, more consistent in games, and we have that all over the field.”

HE’S read a lot of cycling books in the past few months. For all the poison in cycling’s bloodstream there’s something elemental about the sport that appeals to him: more than anything it’s the bloodyminded resolve that it demands. “And you learn that we all have this resolve, just to be tapped into.”

Outside of that, it was boxing that captured him. “I’d love to have grown up in the era of Foreman and Ali and be in the middle of that. I keep saying to myself, ‘One of these days you should head over to Pennsylvania and meet Ali.’ Even wait outside his house until he comes out. He’s supposed to be very gracious if people come to his house.

“I’m very interested in people like Kieren Fallon. What makes him tick? What makes him so good? I just feel sport is such a fascinating world.”

On the university campus in Nova Scotia, Griffin is a little piece of exotica from the wide world of sport; the guy with the stick. One day, in sports psychology class, the lecturer picked him out to demonstrate how an athlete should be interviewed. It was last autumn and she asked him what he was like under pressure, how big was the last crowd he played in front of — was it hundreds or did it run into thousands? “I said to myself, ‘This might sound like boasting but I’m going to say it anyway. Well, the last game I played there were 53 and a half thousand at it’ and there were gasps.”

Over the years big days have been his metier. For two seasons he’s finished in the top five scorers from play in the championship and this year he’s on course again. In the beginning people wondered if he’d acquire the calmness to be a goalscorer at the highest level; from his past 17 championship matches he has 10 goals to his name. Answered.

He can’t look beyond Wexford today but at the beginning of the year he was looking further. All of them were. Why not? On the day of his debut in 2002 he was profiled with a Q&A in the match programme. Just 21 years old himself, he was asked to offer his best advice to young people.

“Set out what you want to achieve, be it sport or work,” he said, “and just go for it. Never berate or congratulate yourself too much. Always believe that anything is possible.”

He’s been true to his word.

thinkstoomuch1 · 16-12-2013 9:47pm

Im a big fan of tony griffin on the field,and off it.
That was a great old interview in a paper with him.

padd b1975 · 16-12-2013 10:13pm

Diabhal Beag wrote: »

Shane Curran, especially if there's any cameras around.

Outside of anything Galway-related that's my favourite GAA moment ever.

FYP.

randd1 · 16-12-2013 10:28pm

Ger Loughnane or Liam Sheedy in the hurling, both great hurling commentators, both very knowledgeable of the game and both well capable of having a laugh.

In football, Spillane and Brolly, purely for shock value (Brolly especially).

From within my own county, probably Tommy Walsh, an absolute gentleman to meet, well worth listening to when he does (very rarely) talk about hurling in the media, and according to lads who've been there, he's absolutely unreal craic on a night out.

Straight Talker · 16-12-2013 10:35pm

Im breaking the rules here because this is a Cork player!I suppose everyone has their one opinions about the man but i met Sean Og recently and i was overwhelmed with his kindness and generosity.He is an absolute gentleman and a credit to Cork.Sean Og Abu Corcaigh Abu.

thinkstoomuch1 · 16-12-2013 11:21pm

Brian Cococran,all star at corner back ,centre back and full Forward.We will do well to come close to finding someone half as good,in that you could play him anywhere on the field at intercounty,bar a goalkeeper,simply as it would be a waste of talent and injustice to play him their,and he would survive.He would even do a lot more than survive.And the scary thing,he's brother john only for a motorbike accident was meant to have been better.

thinkstoomuch1 · 16-12-2013 11:22pm

Brian Corcoran
Sunday, 5th December
Profile: Brian Corcoran.
December 2004.
.
On the first Wednesday of last April, an e-mail dropped in Donal Óg Cusack’s inbox. It was Brian Corcoran. Over the previous six months the pair had regularly met in the Silversprings Hotel leisure centre and Cusack had been the first player Corcoran had told that he was going back playing with the club. Now he had more news. Earlier that morning Cusack had asked him the same question he had for months. “Any word from Grady?” There was. “Yes. He wants me back.”

It was the sentence that followed though that caused Cusack to sit up.

“Not so sure if I should.”

Corcoran had been suffering from cold feet for a few days by then. Donal O’Grady had phoned on Saturday, inviting him to training. Corcoran had accepted but this was decision time. If he was going to change his mind, it had to before training that night. At that moment he was seriously considering doing just that.

“I was half-afraid to go, not knowing if lads would accept me back with me being out for so long. When I finished up, there were a few people in the club who had been bitter about it. Nobody said it to my face but you’d hear back, people saying you should have given the club a couple of more years. Fellas [with the county] might have held it against you that you packed up in the first place.”

Cusack’s reply was instant. He was Brian Corcoran; every player on the panel would be delighted to have him back. That was enough for Corcoran. The moment he got out of his car at Páirc Uí Chaoimh, there was a beep from another and Tom Kenny and Eamon Collins were waving at him. Seán Óg Ó hAilpín had a football match with Na Piarsaigh in Páirc Uí Rinn but afterwards made a point of calling in. He had to honour the return of the king.

O’Grady wasn’t as reverential. That same night Brian Corcoran was told that he held his hurley the wrong way. The heel of the hurley should always be closer to the ground than the toe, O’Grady argued; Corcoran’s sin was when he went to control a ball coming at his left side after controlling one on his right, he would move his arms across instead of twisting them to keep that heel closer to the ground. “I know it’s 20 years of bad habits,” O’Grady said, “but I want you to change.” Later he would tell him that when he went to bat a ball, his hands were in the wrong position. That was okay with Corcoran. Going home that first night he knew where he stood with the players and with O’Grady.

Where he stood with the game was a different matter.

We all know where it ended, and how. The dying seconds of the All Ireland final and a ball played out towards the Hogan Stand side, Corcoran sprinting onto it, riding a tackle, turning onto his left, shooting, scoring, and then roaring on his knees to Joe Deane. It all seems so perfect: the All Ireland, the third All Star, how his championship ended like it started with that point against Limerick – on his knees, boy. It wasn’t that simple, predictable, linear. After a few games with Erins Own, some feared that, to use Dinny Cahill’s term, he was “finished”.

“John Allen was telling me a couple of weeks ago that all the selectors bar Grady were there the night we played Killeagh [in Páirc Uí Rinn] in February. I was centre forward and maybe got four points from play but I fumbled a lot of ball. It wasn’t so bad dropping ball in the air because of the lights – I might have dropped them five years ago – but on the ground there was no excuse. It would have been about my fourth game back but John wasn’t impressed anyhow.”

Even a month after he had been called up to the county panel – (“Grady I reckon was the one who influenced the others”) – Corcoran was struggling. The club beat UCC in the championship but Corcoran found he was out on his feet after 20 minutes. Which was par for course at the time.

“Three or four people came up when they heard I was back with Cork and said, ‘Are you off your game? You’re not impressing here; how do you expect to impress at inter-county?’ These would have been fellas who you’d have played with for a long time. I suppose I was a bit pig-headed about it but I felt if I was in getting plenty of practice on Sully [Diarmuid O’Sullivan], I had something to offer. Maybe I was wearing rose-tinted glasses.”

Corcoran’s not sure when those glasses slipped on, only that they were there the Wednesday after last year’s All Ireland final. It had been their first game he had gone to, just like the 1999 football final had been the only time he had seen the county’s footballers after he finished up with them the previous year. If he went to Thurles, he risked being abused by people who felt he had retired prematurely and the idea of being stuck in traffic and then a pub didn’t appeal quite as much as getting in a game of golf and watching it on TV. This though was the All Ireland, so he parked the car in the Citywest Hotel, got the bus in, watched the match with his sister Ann and then got the bus back out.

Just before he headed back to Cork, he felt he should pop in to commiserate with the lads. Tom Barry brought him up to the reception room where he got talking to some of the men he soldiered with in 1999, and some others like Setanta who was their voluntary ball-boy back then. Jimmy McEvoy, the team masseur, insisted he stay for the main function and before he knew it, Corcoran was running out to change out of his Cork jersey and into some shirt he had in the car boot. It was four in the morning when he left the Citywest to be at work for nine. You would have thought the first thing he’d have done when his shift in Janssen Pharmaceuticals was over would be to head to bed. Instead he went to Kent Station and then the Imperial Hotel to meet the players. And just like the night before, not one of them asked if he missed it. The only man who did was John Allen. “Not a bit,” Corcoran told him. “I was quite happy to be up in that stand. Been there, done that.”

It was the truth. That spring O’Grady had phoned and Corcoran declined his offer. Hurling had become a chore in the final years. “You’d be on your way home, all you wanted to do was play with the baby and instead you were being dragged away to do something that you didn’t want to do. By the time you came back she was asleep. It came to the stage where you were getting up in the morning and saying, ‘Christ, I’ve training tonight.’”

It was inevitable; at the recent coaching conference on burnout in DCU, O’Grady pointed out that at one stage Corcoran trained with 13 different teams. Corcoran doesn’t regret the commitment he gave to Cork football though, only that he played against Kerry in ’98. It was his first football match in three months. “At one stage, I was all on my own and bounced the ball twice. I said to Paddy Russell: ‘I couldn’t have bounced the ball twice!’”

He would question some of the training though. In 1997, the footballers were together 185 times in 270 days before a first-round exit to Clare. It was the one year Corcoran physically got ill from training. Within a few years, he felt the same about the hurling. Shortly after he had retired, Corcoran was told by a doctor that his mother’s cancer was terminal, yet within a minute, the doctor was asking him about hurling. People had this idea that sport was his be all and end all. It wasn’t. In 1999, both his parents were alive, he had no kids. By 2003, his parents were dead and he had two kids. He was now Brian Corcoran: husband, father, and former player.

Something about meeting up with the lads after the All Ireland though had him thinking maybe it was time to change part of that description. That night when he and Elaine were watching TV, he mentioned going back playing. Elaine’s instant reaction was, “Oh, I’m sure the club will be delighted.” Corcoran told her he was thinking of the county. It wasn’t that he felt he would have made the difference the previous Sunday – he didn’t – but he felt there was an All Ireland in them and the notion of teaming up with Tom Kenny, the cousin of a neighbour, appealed. Elaine played devil’s advocate for awhile before they agreed – he would feel worse if Cork won the All Ireland and he hadn’t given it a shot than if he had come back and either he or Cork or both fell flat on their face.

He knew his second coming would have to be as a forward. Ronan Curran was now the best centre back in the country. Besides, playing centre back had been one of the reasons he had quit in the first place. He remembers playing St Finbarr’s in Ballinlough in 2000. “Ger Cunningham was in goal and I just knew no way was he going to puck one ball near me. All I did was run around without hitting a ball.” Going up to the forwards would be a form of reincarnation.

He went out to the garage to bring the hurley into the kitchen and it “felt as if I had never held a hurley in my life” but he knew the test would be the gym. He had been a member of the Silversprings for two years without using it; the treadmill would remind him “fairly quickly why [he] packed it in the first place.” Soon he was up there four nights a week. Not long after that he would be in the ball alley in Erins Own. Then he was playing matches for them. And then O’Grady called again.

The turning point, they’ll both agree, was the challenge game in Ennis two weeks before the Munster final. Up to then, Corcoran’s appearances had all been second-half cameos; that night he started. It wasn’t the three goals he scored off Brian Lohan that impressed the selectors but how he coped in the physical stakes. A fortnight later he was wearing number 14 in Thurles. A chest infection that had been bothering him all week meant he didn’t know running onto the field if he would be fit to start but the warm-up went well. The first half went even better as looked his old imperious self. Then he spent the second half “seeing every ball either going over your head or dropping into [Stephen] Brenner.”

In John Gardiner’s view, something Brian Corcoran said the following Wednesday had a huge impact. Corcoran plays it down; “all I was saying was I would feel as good about winning an All Ireland through the backdoor as much as I enjoyed ’99”. It was the tactical adjustments that were the key.

“Grady made us watch the last ten minutes and the number of times we just lashed the ball instead of looking up. Then there were times in the first half when Ben [O’Connor] and Tom Kenny were running through and [Declan] Prendergast went to meet them. The lads could have slipped the ball in. We weren’t being ruthless. Timmy McCarthy’s goal in Killarney; two weeks earlier he’d have tapped that ball over the bar.”

Next came Antrim. Ask Corcoran about Dinny Cahill declaring he was “finished” and he swears he was delighted. Complacency was no longer a problem. That was the day Corcoran really came to appreciate O’Grady’s coaching was “top notch”. Earlier in the summer, he would hear how Kilkenny and Waterford were “flaking each other out of it in all these games in training, whereas we were standing around hooking and blocking”; Corcoran couldn’t understand why he had been on O’Sullivan 15 minutes all year. The exhibition the backs gave against Antrim confirmed there was method in O’Grady’s madness.

He had as much respect for trainers Gerry Wallis and Sean McGrath. Often they would ask him if he felt dizzy after a run; if he said he did, they would tell him to sit out; there was no point in him trying to be as fit as Seán Óg. Amazing. He remembers around ’96, he’d finish first in the sprints and the laps and his hurling colleagues would remark how fit he was. The next night, he’d train with the footballers and Podsie O’Mahony, Ciaran O’Sullivan, Aidan Dorgan and about five others would leave him for dead. Put the 2004 Cork hurlers with their football counterparts and they’d be every bit as fit – without going near Inchydoney and that hill in Macroom.

O’Grady allowed some flexibility. Against Limerick, O’Grady’s instructions were for him to stay around the square. At half-time in Killarney, the message was to come out to win some puckouts. Corcoran noticed that when he did, so did Philip Maher, leaving space inside. After that, he started coming out in general play and was “never told not to do it”. And so, in the All Ireland semi-final, he dragged Darragh Ryan out. In the final it was Noel Hickey’s turn. After the final underneath the Hogan Stand, O’Grady rightly told reporters that it had been a “huge fillip” that Hickey had to be switched to corner back. A year ago at the post-match function, a supporter plagued Corcoran all night, telling him he would have made the difference. In 2004 that fan would have been right.

And so here Corcoran is, talking away less than three years after telling you he wouldn’t care if he held a hurley again. He still says he was right to quit when he did; if he had stayed on, he wouldn’t have been playing this year. He’s confident that the decision to stay on for 2005 year is right too. Yes, one of his stated reasons for wanting to come back was so that losing to Offaly in 2000 wouldn’t be his last memory of Croke Park; by staying on, he risks departing on a similar note. It’s one he’s prepared to take.

“It’s always hard to know when to go. Some people go out on a high and it’s a good way to go. Take Grady; he’ll be remembered for the All Ireland. But once you’re enjoying it and there’s a chance that you can do it again, you should try it.”

Anyway, didn’t he just learn how to hold a hurley right?

curraghyid · 16-12-2013 11:24pm

Davy Fitz and mr joe brolly legends

Clareman · 16-12-2013 11:53pm

Folks,

Please don't quote full articles as this is in breach of copyright law in Ireland, simply quote the first paragraph and leave a link to the article please.

Thanks.

angelfire9 · 17-12-2013 12:50am

For me (given that I can't name any of Clare's legends) there is only one name that comes to mind
Páidí
Gone (a year yesterday I think) but not forgotten

thinkstoomuch1 · 17-12-2013 12:56am

angelfire9 wrote: »

For me (given that I can't name any of Clare's legends) there is only one name that comes to mind
Páidí
Gone (a year yesterday I think) but not forgotten

A great player and great man.
There is a documentary on xmas night on tg4 about him.

HellsKitchen · 17-12-2013 4:28pm

Davy Fitz

Straight Talker · 18-12-2013 7:21pm

Did anyone mention Michael O'Heir yet.Who cares about presidents speeches when you've just won an all ireland after 33 years.Wait until you hear the silence when Eamonn Grimes comes up and speaks.You don't have to be a president just a captain to get silence.