RIP Gene Parmesan
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Mr Howard Bernstein
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Fair play @Malarkey. A lovely piece.
I recall Cashman describing John Power as âan amalgam of barbed wire and whipcordâ. Iâve happy memories of trying to decipher his Sunday Trubune column as a teenager
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The greatest winner ever scored
Kevin Cashman
June 23rd, 1996
THE Banner did not lose it; they refused to win it. Never in the history of hurling conflict did so many conspire so ingeniously to allow so vincible an enemy to survive.
Forget about qualities of physique and skill, for a moment, and concentrate on matters mental: Limerick are staunch, and Limerick are not stupid. But whoever â if anyone â devised The Bannerâs "tacticsâ of the second half proceeded upon the opposite assumption: that assumption being that Limerick had not the fortitude or the wit to get back and defend in large numbers around and inside their own 21 yard line. But, Limerick had. And, so, The Bannerâs every dozy, retarded, imbecile solo and handpass dissipation was easily intercepted â or swallowed up in bunching and mauling; none of which caused a flicker of concern to Joe Quaid.
Not just in that specific area, but all over the pitch, scrambling, mistake ridden hurling diminished the match. Yet it was, as Ger Loughnane remarked, a truly unique occasion; made so by excitement and tension and passion and sportsmanship (not whiter than white, but still terrific) and a pre-match atmosphere, in the ground and its environs; such as many of us had thought had gone with the days of the '50s when Limerick had a proper stadium.
That said, it must be re-emphasised that mistakes, not hurling virtuosity, determined the outcome. Consider the case of Eamonn Taaffe: even after Mike Houlihan had slowed him a bit, Taaffe had the legs of Mike Nash; The Bannerâs midfielders and half forwards had merely to hit the blasted ball quickly in the general direction of Taaffe before a population explosion could happen inside or around that 21 of Limerick. But simplicity, and productivity, are against the principles of that quintet of Clare lads; so, they solo ran along pathways defined by the allure of the corner flag, and, like the great shitehawk of fable, the borders of their own colonic regions.
The end of the feeling of revisiting Dal gCais, and living in heroic times: the shock of those heroic times being terminated by so limited a team as Limerick. How did The Banner allow these traumas to befall us all? Failures of wit and concentration. In 1952, a dour Cork v Galway All Ireland semi-final, after being 0-2 to 0-2 at half time, was getting dourer by the minute when a half chance fell to one C Ring. He might have swung for a goal; but C Ring suspected that his pursuer was near enough to hook; so, with no swine at all, the ball was flicked â or, if you like, scooped â up and over the bar. Ten years later, at age 42, the performance was repeated in a grand league match against Limerick. In between, in the unforgettable finals of '54 and '56 against Wexford, sliotars were handpassed â over the bar from within spitting range of the goalkeeper: The Master knew the value of a point when a goal was too improbable, and the game was in the balance, and time remained for it to take turn upon turn.
Not so Ger OâLoughlm. He should never have started that solo; but, Sweet Loving Jesus! Sparrow must have known, when he reached the 14 yard line, that the immediate area was more crowded with Limerick defenders than an Aer Lingus junket flight with Cork county councillors. He was straight in front of the goal; to flick or scoop the sliotar upwards â without swinging and risking being hooked â and have it fall gently over the bar should have been the work of a moment. But Sparrow lacks C Ringâs afflatus; Sparrow handpassed in the genera! direction of a man who was manacled.
(By the way, to say. all of that is not to denigrate Ger OâLoughlin, who has been central to Clareâs progress since that marvellous, mystifying day in Ennis in May 1993. In point of fact, a, justly, more famous forward, John Fitzgibbon, a man intrigued and obsessed by the life and lore of The Master, made precisely the same mistake in the 1990 All Ireland final: having soloed to within eight or nine yards of the Galway goal, Fitzy tried to swing, and was duly hooked, when to apply the precepts of his idol, i.e. scoop or shovel the ball over the bar, was clearly the correct choice.)
Mistakes, mistakes. If somebody had forecast to you that, on a perfect day for free takers, Sean McMahon would drive three wide youâd have guffawed â but it happened, and was central to the result. If the same sceptic had forecast that David Fitzgerald would fail to control into his hand an innocuous wee shot, youâd have been mildly attentive. But, when your sceptic went on to envision Frank Lohan, from the ensuing scramble, topping a straightforward whip on a simple rolling ball â which Tony OâBrien or Peter Doolan would have landed seventy yards away â your language would have turned kaleidoscopic. But it happenedâ and, on top of that, Gary Kirby was unmarked as he took advantage.
TO enumerate mistakes, without seeking out every possible source of, or excuse for, them, is unjust. So: our standard sliotar, on days of extreme heat and glare such as Sunday last, is woefully behind the times, as this correspondent first pointed out a dozen years since. A sliotar dappled black and white; a sliotar coloured yellow or bright or dark orange, a la Wimbledon, would surely help â cast your mind back to the number of straightforward, unmarked fetches, and attempts at batting or blocking; which were fluffed by genuine top class hurlers, a week since.
And we could probably borrow, with some profit, from the cricketersâ extraordinary range of facial adornments. After all, they exert themselves far, far less than hurlers do; yet, their precautions against glare, and/or getting a drop of sweat in the eyes, far outstrip anything hurlers bother to think about.
Matters for mentors and managers.
Mere fans and enjoyers and chroniclers have the memory of That Point: Mackey has his stand; very shortly, Power shall have his monument; Carey has That Point. The greatest winner ever scored.
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Cashman had it - could be brilliant, baffling and bonkers in the same article and get away with it.
RIP
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Wtf 
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RIP.
An uncle to John Fitzgibbon
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Was in his company for pints several times through a brother who worked in the Tribune, fairly sure post match that hurling final in 86 being 1 memorable occasion. In that small hotel bar near, Parnell St, canât remember the name. Great times, he was a great man for the pints too
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The Dergvale?
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He described the Waterford team of 1989 as the Black and Tans in Blue and White.
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. He used to call Noelie Crowley Gregory Peck! I was never quite sure but i think it was the way Crowley used to sort of peck at the sliotar when he was attempting to rise it.
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I think he hated the Galway team of the 80s and martin naughton in particular because of solo running and handpassing.
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An underrated spot for a drink. Though I only ever drank in it once. Is it still open?
. The Jennett Express he used to call them.
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I think it was him who lamented Paul Flynn driving sliotars out over the ball stop nets when taking a free and âwasting the games resourcesâ.
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Wouldnât have a clue
He sounds fair shook on the radio at the moment. And way more Galway than he used to sound on telly.