Reeling In The Years 1

[Silken Thomas]

Here’s a succinct piece that our hurling brethren will surely adore. I myself took exception to the final paragraph.
Either way a poet masquerading as a mere employee. Loved to read his pieces.

Kilkenny have no passengers . . . and they have Charlie Carter . . . and that's why they may beat Offaly, writes Kevin Cashman

THE best that may be said about the latest proposals for overhauling the hurling championship is that it is a mighty pity that they were not enforced before we got landed with this final.

We've heard and read all sorts of dire prognostications about the game becoming bogged down by tactical subtleties and obscurities. But, in truth, dangers of Offaly getting up to these or those contrivances on the day are not the major concern. The major concern is that they are in the final at all.

And, anyway, their game contains little enough in the way of convolutions and complications. Joe Dooley's turning up in his own half-back line to lend a hand, especially under puckouts, was just about the most surprising thing they did against Cork. And that was hardly an innovation John Leahy was at it a decade since and Christy Ring forty years before him. What Offaly have in supreme measure is what we who can look back from the high hill of old age used to be startled by and terrified by when practised by Tipp's great team of half a century since: supernal ''combination and teamwork'' it was called then. Nowadays, in the frantic pursuit of meaninglessness, passing the ball to your colleague has to be called ''tactics.''

Another thing: when you hear some honcho blathering away about ''the balance of the side'' do you know what he means? Do you believe for a second that he does?

And, while we're at it, don't you think it is high time for Liam Griffin to ease up on his obsession with DJ Carey? Is it not hard enough to watch RTE's notions of camera work and presentation, while you are recovering on a Monday evening, without having to put up with a dosage of idolatry which is now declining from the merely ridiculous into the indecent?

Take the goal against Galway. There you saw a truly fine defender, Brian Feeney, suffering a lapse which was as shocking as hearing the Dalai Lama tell a smutty yarn or finding a split infinitive in the work of Evelyn Waugh. When Brian McEvoy hit his high and hopeful lob, Feeney, for no fathomable reason, was standing at least a dozen yards off Carey. So Carey fetched the sliotar and pucked a fairly routine shot into the net, which is what he'd be paid to do if the ''Show Me The Money'' mob had their way.

Whereupon Liam Griffin, rather than analyse the train of events which is what the hurling populace thinks he's there for, abandoned himself to the throes of instant and seemingly multiple orgasm. Will e'er a television set in the entire land survive dear Liam's convulsions if Carey ever scores a goal remotely approaching the virtuosity of English's kick in '87, or Foxy's flick in '91, or Fenton's whip in '87, or Barry Murphy's deathless double in '83?

DJ Carey is quite a good player. He is not, was not, the greatest hurler of all time nor even of the decade he inhabited. Joe Cooney, John Leahy, Brian Whelahan, Ciarán Carey and Mark Foley beside him, Brian Lohan, Brian Corcoran, Declan Ryan were the best hurlers of the '90s. and if you had to go to the Alamo or the GPO you'd want Michael Coleman and Martin Storey along. And for this observer's few halfpence Ciarán Carey was the best of the lot because as that grisly old war criminal, Churchill, might have said if he'd been sentenced to hang when he should have been, thus concentrating what was left of his mind 'never in the history of hurling conflict have so many passengers owed so much to one man.'



Offaly beat Cork because almost uniformly throughout the field, their touch on the sliotar and use of the sliotar were better, and because all of the usual Cork passengers failed to pay their fares. But Kilkenny have no passengers certainly none as instantly identifiable as Cork's four. And Kilkenny's touch and use of the ball are quite as adept and attractive as Offaly's. So that Kilkenny can, in all probability, get by on smaller rations of possession than Cork's pace and hunger and youthful enthusiasm garnered.



Kilkenny's advantage of pace over Offaly may not be as pronounced as Cork's was, but it can hardly be doubted. Kinahan, Errity, Claffey, Pilkington, Ryan and Dooley Sr, are slow players by modern standards. Of course, most of them have skill and hurling IQ above the ordinary. the point is that today they play a side which is not notably lacking in such gifts.



Much perhaps too much has been made of the doubt over Brian McEvoy. After all, Offaly have to start without Hubert Rigney, who is every scintilla as influential a player. And Kilkenny have Canice Brennan amongst their subs surely as hefty a bonus as has sat on a bench since the days when Tipp used to keep Liam Devanney in reserve. Perhaps Kilkenny are regretting that Canice has not had a gallop or two in the championship. still the man's dignified handling of his trauma at the hands of his own ''supporters'' some years ago, and everything about his bearing since, suggests that he will 'prove most royally' as The Bard put it, if called upon.



After the long Summer of hype, John Power has a great deal to live up to. One year ago and one year younger he achieved little enough when faced by a genuine centre-back. Now, in the wake of one fairly impressive performance on a wing-back, Brian Whelehan, and another on Cathal Moore, who is not a centre-back whatever else he may be, Power is being looked to as even more of a messiah than Carey. Here's one who is not expecting any walks on the waves and billows of Corporate Park.



If we see any such, they may very well be performed by Charlie Carter. Offaly have never quite got to grips with him since he was finally given a secure place by Kilkenny. In fact, in Kilkenny where they very notably think long and hard about the game of hurling sometimes to the extent of outsmarting themselves they are now probably regretting long and hard that they did not give Charlie his security much earlier in the '90s. In Cork we think long and hard, too, except that much of what we think is complacency or cliche. in Tipp it is self-delusion. in Clare paranoia. in Wexford nostalgia. and in Limerick grudgery.



Apart from the taint of the back door, one other very solid reason dictates that it would be altogether better for the game if Offaly were beaten today: with virtually no hullabaloo about it they have been for a few seasons prolific pullers of nasty strokes on opponents: just recall the belts suffered by Andy Comerford and Jackie Carson and Diarmuid O'Sullivan and several others. If that kind of thuggery had been dished out by Tipperary or Cork or Antrim, for that matter we'd still be hearing about it at the GAA's 150th birthday.

[Plain of the Herbs]

Yea, I always enjoyed reading Kevin Cashman’s articles in the Sindo, and later, the Sunday Turbine, during the nineties.

Like many Cork sages who lamented the demise of the ‘Cork way of hurling’ he was an admirer of Offaly who at their peak still played that Cork way.

Indeed, in previewing that year’s hurling championship, I recall Cashman noting that the biggest threat to Clare, then at their peak, was Offaly.

Some other Cashman observations that have stayed in the memory are:

- His dread of Galway’s ‘Jennet Express’ being promoted by Cyril Farrell at that time;

- How David Hughes’ alarm clock didn’t go off before the 1995 NHL semi final;

- His taking of poetic licence following the 1995 club final when he noted that the announcement over the public address that the Lusmagh bus would leave at 9pm “said much about current Offaly attitudes to hard training” In fact, the bus and its passengers had become separated following a breakdown that morning and the driver got it announced that the bus (now back on the road) would be reunited with its passengers at Clonliffe at 5pm.

- The Greedy players association, Corporate Park, etc.;

- There were experimental rules in place for the 94/95 league, and Limerick manager Tom Ryan complained that his players had difficulty mixing both rules at the same time as continuing competitions were played under the existing rules. Cashman pointed out to Tom Ryan that his players seemed to have no difficulty playing under one set of rules (soccer) in the morning and another (hurling) on the same afternoon!.


I don’t ever recall reading the 2000 final preview before. I don’t know how he had such a bee in his bonnet about the Andy Comerford incident. Comerford pulled across Regan as hard as Regan did across the Kilkennyman and how Pat O’Connor singled out Regan for dismissal only he knows. John Carson nearly broke Rigney’s leg with the blow, though in fairness Ryan ‘falling’ in O’Sullivan was unnecessary.

The last time I read Cashman was in the Evening Echo the year Kilkenny beat Clare in the All-Ireland when he wrote beforehand that the outcome was “no murder mystery”. More recently he wrote a piece or two in the Kilkenny/Tipperary voice joint hurling publication “The Championship Feeling” two years ago.

If anyone knows if he's still writing will they let me know? Thanks.

[Phoenix]

Just to say that I used to enjoy Kevin Cashman a lot also. He could be infuriating at times when being very cryptic about who exactly he was talking about (for instance the references to passengers in the reproduced article) or just plain eccentric in his views but he was always a bit of a stylist in his own way.

[Bord na Mona man]

I seem to remember there was a bit of timber exchanged between Rigney and Carson in the '98 Quarter Final.
Perhaps Carson dispatching Rigney (and then Kevin Martin) to the treatment room in '99 stemmed from that game game.
However I don't recall any blow by Rigney that would warrant mention.

I suspect there might be another reason he remembers the John Ryan - Diarmuid O'Sullivan incident.
As outlined above Cashman had it in for Liam Griffin that year. Basically because in his tv commentaries, Griffin was constantly lauding DJ Carey as the greatest hurler of all time. To any Cork person who reveres Christy Ring, this sort of talk goes down like a Salmon Rushdie novel in Iran!

In the semi final Ryan and Hanniffy both doubled up to flatten Cashman's darling Diarmuid O'Sullivan. Possibly in repayment for for a belt Sully got booked for in the first half.
On the tv commentary Griffin chuckled about living by the sword, implying that because O'Sullivan dished out a lot of punishment, he might expect a bit in return. In the Munster final that, O'Sullivan had also pulled a head high stroke on someone from Tipp (I keep thinking Cummins for some reason).
Cashman was fuming about what Griffin had said and this might explain why he was so upset by the incident.

Reading the above article, he is doing his best to laud Carter at the expense of Carey.
It proved to be undoing.
Later that year he overstepped in his crusade to bring a halt to DJ-mania.
He called Carey "vainglorious" and basically called him a money grabber.
The upshot was that Carey sued the Sindo for a 6 figure sum and that was the last he was ever heard from Cashman in any mainstream paper.

[Bord na Mona man]

Some quips by Cashman

"An All-Ireland and right soon is every bit as gut grippingly essential to Noel Lane as it was to Michael Keating or Brian Cody. Remember how Lane, proud possessor of an imperial panoply of hurling skills, matched in Galway by Joe Cooney alone, was, before the All-Ireland finals of 1987 and '88, dropped from a Galway attack ravaged by a population explosion of handballing heathens and supersonic soloists, who wore the cover off the ball and scorched the earth, in search of a flight path back to their native stratosphere, and confounded the tranquillity of every class of hurling humanoid except scorekeepers."

- The "black and tans in white" - Waterford in the 1989 Munster final
- I believe he ones referred to the Sindo as the "regimental journal of the black and tans"
- He said it was Offaly's own "vanity" that caused them to lift themselves to beat Clare in 1998.
- He declared himself happy with Offaly's win in '98, that because of Offaly's preparations, they wouldn't be boring us all winter describing all the "hard slog" they put in to win the All Ireland.

[Bord na Mona man]

Letters to the paper:

Offaly's progress

By Letter of the Week

Sunday September 10 2000
Sir I was very surprised at the comments of Kevin Cashman regarding the Offaly Senior Hurling Team.

Mr Cashman writes: ``Two years ago Offaly were given the McCarthy Cup they did not win it ... by the time they had taken their place in the final they still had not beaten Clare ... better sportsmen than Offaly would have let Clare's lead stand.''

This is strange writing from Kevin Cashman because the GAA had no option but to grant Offaly's request for the third game seeing as the referee had made a time error (the official rule book says as much), and, secondly, because you will not find better sportsmen in GAA than you find in Offaly. The Antrim team of '89 would agree with me on that one.

Offaly hurlers do not make their own GAA rules they play them as the official guide states.

Aidan Grennan, Rahan.

Sir Since when does beating two of the All-Ireland Champions of the past five years along the way constitute a bye to a final? Granted, Wexford were a pale shadow of the team of 1996, but Cork had blazed their way through Munster, and were hot favourites to beat Offaly for the second year running.

On the day, however, Offaly fully deserved their victory, with an outstanding display of teamwork, which Mr Cashman rightly states was one of the finest displays of the past eight years.

What has angered people in Offaly is comments regarding our All-Ireland victory in 1998. Yes, we did win it. It wasn't handed to us. Your statistic that Offaly and Clare had an equal number of points at the end of the trilogy may be correct, but Clare were never leading at the end of any of the games. Only two of the games actually ended. The first replay was blown up prematurely, and who knows what could have happened in the remaining 2.5 minutes plus injury time. Just ask any Limerick fan who witnessed the 1994 All Ireland, or any Wexford fan who was preparing for a Leinster Final showdown with Kilkenny in 1998 until Johnny Dooley struck at about 4.55 that Sunday afternoon.

A win for Offaly today will mean they will have claimed 25 per cent of the All Ireland Senior Hurling titles of the past 20 years (Kilkenny are aiming for a similar statistic). Offaly have provided many of the highlights in the great game of hurling over the past two decades, and have produced some outstanding hurlers, and frankly, it is an insult to hear it said that the All Ireland Final is unappealing because of their presence.

Martin Hynes, Tullamore.

Sir Re Kevin Cashman and the almighty Munster final. May I make a suggestion to Mr Cashman as inspired by American sports: the hurling world series contested by Munster teams only, so they can boast of their world success and not have to face the indignity of losing in the All-Ireland series.

David Gleeson via email

Sir If Mr Cashman wants to talk about Offaly deserving to be where we are then maybe he should look back over the years to when Leinster Finals were knock-out; too often Offaly were knocked out unfairly, the more notorious of these times being the famous Matt Ruth goal that wasn't.

Kevin Geoghegan, via email.

- Letter of the Week

Kevin and DJ


Search Query: Independent.ie Web Search

By By SHANE HICKEY

Sunday September 24 2000
Sir
Re Kevin Cashman's saying that DJ Carey lusts for money and that his contribution in the final was just mediocre, how dare he make these statements, when the remainder of the hurling journalists agree that Carey's display was probably the greatest ever seen in a final.

N Grace, Threecastles.

Sir

I have been an admirer of Kevin Cashman's style and his knowledge of hurling for some time. His style is a welcome change from the cliché-ridden prose of his fellow journalists.

How sad then to read his pre-All-Ireland piece when his sole intention was to denigrate DJ Carey, not really for his hurling skill but purely because of his involvement with the Players' Association. Cashman devoted his All-Ireland report to a continuing diatribe about the Players Association and DJ's part therein. The final straw was his comment about the excellence of Shefflin and Carter, with occasional help from Carey!

Jim Butler, D5.

Sir

DJ Carey is one of the greatest hurlers of all time, and his sportsmanship and behaviour both on and off the field of play are a wonderful example for any aspiring young athlete to follow.

Michael Farrell, Carlow.

Sir

I protest at the witch-hunt by Kevin Cashman against DJ Carey.

Stan Kiely, Waterford.

[Plain of the Herbs]

Aye, Cashman wasn't slow to point out Griffin's Kilkenny-based business interestd either.

I suspect there might be another reason he remembers the John Ryan - Diarmuid O'Sullivan incident.
As outlined above Cashman had it in for Liam Griffin that year. Basically because in his tv commentaries, Griffin was constantly lauding DJ Carey as the greatest hurler of all time. To any Cork person who reveres Christy Ring, this sort of talk goes down like a Salmon Rushdie novel in Iran!

Nabobs was hisfavouirite term of abuse, too, and he hardly ever wrote an article without using it.

[turk]

I don’t ever recall reading the 2000 final preview before. I don’t know how he had such a bee in his bonnet about the Andy Comerford incident. Comerford pulled across Regan as hard as Regan did across the Kilkennyman and how Pat O’Connor singled out Regan for dismissal only he knows. John Carson nearly broke Rigney’s leg with the blow, though in fairness Ryan ‘falling’ in O’Sullivan was unnecessary.

It could be argued that once Comerford's disgraceful play acting got Regan sent off and the subsequent media witch hunt, the way was paved open for Kilkenny to dominate Leinster! Has anyone seen Kilkenny dominated physically in a match in Leinster since?

[Kevin]

If we are referring to the Regan/Comerford encounter in the 1999 Leinster final?

If so I seem to remember the both of them hitting each other with their hurls right in front of the new stands until Daithi broke his and then punched Comerford in the mouth.

Don't know exactly what led up to that sequence though.

[Bord na Mona man]

If we are referring to the Regan/Comerford encounter in the 1999 Leinster final?

If so I seem to remember the both of them hitting each other with their hurls right in front of the new stands until Daithi broke his and then punched Comerford in the mouth.

Don't know exactly what led up to that sequence though.

It went like this
Andy Comerford had the ball in his hand along the sideline.
Daithi Regan sprinted over like a greyhound to get in front of him and close him down.
Comerford hadn't got any room to strike so he dropped the ball at Regan's ankle and pulled across Regan.
Regan hit him back with the hurl. Comerford struck Regan again with his hurl.
Regan hit Comerford again, breaking his stick, leaving him no choice but to punch Comerford in the mouth to defend himself.

How the ref deemed Comerford only worth a yellow, I'll never know.

[Bord na Mona man]

Has anyone seen Kilkenny dominated physically in a match in Leinster since?

I suppose Clare in 2004 used a good bit of timber to get a draw against Kilkenny.
They didn't necessarily dominate them though.
Maybe Galway in 2001 were they last team to beat Kilkenny by having the physical edge.
Mike Mac had them fairly well steeled for that match.

[Kevin]

If we are referring to the Regan/Comerford encounter in the 1999 Leinster final?

If so I seem to remember the both of them hitting each other with their hurls right in front of the new stands until Daithi broke his and then punched Comerford in the mouth.

Don't know exactly what led up to that sequence though.

It went like this
Andy Comerford had the ball in his hand along the sideline.
Daithi Regan sprinted over like a greyhound to get in front of him and close him down.
Comerford hadn't got any room to strike so he dropped the ball at Regan's ankle and pulled across Regan.
Regan hit him back with the hurl. Comerford struck Regan again with his hurl.
Regan hit Comerford again, breaking his stick, leaving him no choice but to punch Comerford in the mouth to defend himself.

How the ref deemed Comerford only worth a yellow, I'll never know.

Thanks for that BNM. Did not realize how the ball wound up on the ground per se. Do agree Daithi had best hit him with his fist to best save his ACL/ankle that was still being batted. My concern, perhaps like yours is that if this is an example of Offaly 'pulling dirty' we should probably take up tennis.

[joe bloggs]

If we are referring to the Regan/Comerford encounter in the 1999 Leinster final?

If so I seem to remember the both of them hitting each other with their hurls right in front of the new stands until Daithi broke his and then punched Comerford in the mouth.

Don't know exactly what led up to that sequence though.

It went like this
Andy Comerford had the ball in his hand along the sideline.
Daithi Regan sprinted over like a greyhound to get in front of him and close him down.
Comerford hadn't got any room to strike so he dropped the ball at Regan's ankle and pulled across Regan.
Regan hit him back with the hurl. Comerford struck Regan again with his hurl.
Regan hit Comerford again, breaking his stick, leaving him no choice but to punch Comerford in the mouth to defend himself.

How the ref deemed Comerford only worth a yellow, I'll never know.

As someone who sat in the front row of the Cusack stand that day that account sounds largely correct except for one small detail
"Daithi Regan sprinted over like a greyhound to get in front of him and close him down."
Now to use the name Daithi Regan and sprinting like a greyhound in the one sentance may undermine the credibility of your post! I dont think daithi would even contest that one

[turk]

Has anyone seen Kilkenny dominated physically in a match in Leinster since?

I suppose Clare in 2004 used a good bit of timber to get a draw against Kilkenny.
They didn't necessarily dominate them though.
Maybe Galway in 2001 were they last team to beat Kilkenny by having the physical edge.
Mike Mac had them fairly well steeled for that match.

Those instances are well known. Cody didn't like it in either case.

But in Leinster, Kilkenny have not been dominated for a match since 1999

[Bord na Mona man]

I didn't spot that it was Leinster only. I can't think of any. At a guess, I don't think Kilkenny have been dominated physically in Leinster since maybe the Wexford side of the late 80s early 90s?
Wexford have a very small team these days, so wouldn't have much hope of muscling Kilkenny.
They beat them in 2004 by moving the ball cleverly rather than with any physical power.

In 2001 Offaly tried to take on Kilkenny aggressively and failed badly. I suppose this was in reaction to the 2 previous years where Kilkenny under Cody had developed a very physical style of play and Offaly felt they were being bullied a bit.
For the first few minutes in 2001 Offaly were very visibly trying to timber their Kilkenny opponents at every opportunity. While they might have succeeded in landing the hits, the scoreboard quickly showed a yawning gap in Kilkenny's favour.

I think much like Waterford in last year's All Ireland, it is futile stuff when you lose focus on your hurling.
So to answer your question. No one since Daithi Regan in 1999 has successfully dominated Kilkenny physically in Leinster!