Fair enough-I didnât hear that.Thanks dude
Sure joe has her washing jerseys for half the clubs in the mayo
She must be a great ride if u leave your missus and 5 kids for and all the financial and emotional turmoil that invariably brings.
(I wouldnât have thought it myself after listening and looking at her)
Never know tho
Thatâs the Tyrone cuteness coming out in him ( Derry half of him is too soft)
Brolly must get a great giggle out of how he lives inside lads heads
Like Roy Curtis.
I donât think heâs a wum. I believe he genuinely thinks heâs a great poet
Who?
He got him there
Thatâll rock Roy for six
âa lightening rod of cringeâ
Ah lovely
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God almighty a lot of hate there
Can someone do the favour and post the latest Brolly article in full? GRMA
What makes a champion? Dropping All-Stars, benching captains and telling Diarmuid Connolly to âf**k offâ
Rory KavanaghHe must have said honesty 100 times. At that time, we didnât really know what he meant to be honest. The whole thing sounded a bit crazy. He was telling us we would be Ulster and All-Ireland champions but only if we could trust each other and if we were happy to serve a purpose bigger than ourselves. But after a few months we could feel it. It is something you canât see or explain, but every member of the group felt it deep down. When the penny dropped, we could feel the real joy of it. We were part of a movement.â
Me: âTell me more.â
Rory: âItâs very hard to explain. For example, Jimmy was very keen that we immerse ourselves in the people and traditions of the county. We must have trained in 20 different clubs. We would meet and spend time with under-privileged children. We would go to the schools. After training we would eat in the local cafĂ©s and spend an hour chatting with the people. All very down to earth stuff but it gave us an appreciation of what ordinary people in the county were going through and how important the game was to them. Eventually, we had unbreakable bonds and there was a strong sense that nothing could stop us. We were a group famous for throwing in the towel when it really mattered. The throwing in the towel stopped. We were no longer playing for ourselves. We were fanatics in a cause.â
In 2009, Cork had obliterated them in the All-Ireland quarter-final, running in 1-27 in a 14-point thrashing. The following year, Armagh whacked them in Crossmaglen in the qualifiers by nine points, running in 2-14. Within seven months of Jimâs arrival, they were Ulster champions and lost the All-Ireland semi-final by two points. Their best two players in 2011 were Michael Murphy and Kevin Cassidy. During the winter break, Kevin contributed to a book by journalist Declan Bogue, telling a few relatively trivial anecdotes, including the story about Jimmy confiscating the mobile phones the morning of the 2011 semi-final against Dublin to make sure the game plan wasnât leaked. McGuinness dropped him.
It was ruthless, unflinching and irreversible. It was shocking. Cassidy was a pig in training, a team leader, a winner. He has gone on to lead his club Gaoth Dobhair to a magnificent Ulster club title. He would never have been dropped under any of the previous Donegal management teams. But in 2011, the group fully accepted the decision. He had put himself above the group. He had betrayed the greater good. End of. They moved on, in unison. Nine months later, they were All-Ireland champions, fanatical and impenetrable.
Pat Gilroy had a simple mission statement when he took over Dublin: If you are not completely happy to sacrifice yourself for the team, find another pastime.
By then, Dublin had played extremely entertaining football for over a decade and got nowhere. Their most recent All-Ireland was 1995, a full 15 years earlier. In the noughties, they had played a lot of highly enjoyable football, but always wilted on the biggest days. âWe would have won a couple of All-Irelands at least if we hadnât come up against such brilliant Kerry and Tyrone teams,â was the constant refrain. âWe just needed a bit of luck.â In the last quarter of those big games, when they had looked as though they might go on and win, they failed. Yet they were âheroesâ in Dublin and around the country. Their culture of victimhood (âPoor usâ) made them the plucky losers everyone loved.
When Gilroy was asked to take over the team, he was initially reluctant and only did so having got assurances from Dublinâs full-time secretary John Costello that he had his full backing for what would be a painful transformation of the culture.
Expand Close Former Dublin manager Pat Gilroy in conversation with Diarmuid Connolly. Picture credit: Barry Cregg / SPORTSFILE SPORTSFILE / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Former Dublin manager Pat Gilroy in conversation with Diarmuid Connolly. Picture credit: Barry Cregg / SPORTSFILEPhoto by: SPORTSFILE
Gilroy ruthlessly set about culling those players who set themselves above the group. He left Bernard Brogan on the bench for four successive league games. He dropped Diarmuid Connolly altogether in 2010. Meath had beaten them in Leinster. Connolly, who was on the starting XV, missed the next training session. Gilroy met him that night and describes the conversation.
Pat: âYouâre out Dermo. You can stay on as number 40 on the panel with no chance of playing or you can f**k off.â
Diarmuid: âIâll f**k off so.â
They were clubmates. They were teammates. They were friends. They had played together in the St Vincentâs team that won the All-Ireland club final against Nemo in 2008. Connolly was a star. That didnât matter. The group was the only thing that did. On the morning of the 2010 quarter-final, the Dublin bus drove past Connolly, sitting outside Gaffneyâs in Fairview, having a pint. Later that afternoon, the team made their first serious statement, beating Tyrone. At the start of 2011, Connolly met Gilroy, apologised and asked to be taken back. Gilroy said he would have to ask the group. The group said yes, on condition he get himself properly fit. For two months, Connolly trained alone, fanatically, until he was in the shape of his life. When he came back in, no one trained harder.
It is a curiously overlooked fact that Gilroy dropped Dean Rock for the entire 2011 season. After the Meath defeat the previous year, Dean had chosen to go to America for the summer. That was the end of that. âHe was the best free-taker in Dublin, but what could I do?â said Gilroy. After 2011, Rock had his hand up. He had seen the error of his ways and was ready to atone.
He dropped Jayo, a Hill 16 icon. Jayo remains bitter about it to this day. One night, Gilroy went into a bar in the city and bumped into Mark Vaughan, the bleached blond full-forward from Kilmacud Crokes with the sensational skills and flamboyant on-field persona. The next morning he dropped him from the panel. Permanently. The cull was nothing personal. They just werenât suited to serving a cause. It was not their fault. But they could not be accommodated. Otherwise, it is like a cancer. Leave even a little bit of it in and it will spread and eventually kill the culture.
Gilroyâs assistant, Paddy OâDonoghue, went around the team training HQ at DCU ripping the sports sections out of the newspapers. Celebrity appearances were banned. From now on, sponsorship money would go into a playersâ pool. By 2011 Dublin were ready to play serious football. In September that year, they were All-Ireland champions, beating the same Kerry team that had beaten them by 17 points in the quarter-final two years earlier. It was, Gilroy recalls, a painful transition. In particular, dropping Connolly caused Gilroy great personal angst and ructions at St Vincentâs. But there was no other way.
In 2014, Jimmyâs fanatics dismantled Dublin in the semi-final. Both teams were proven winners by then and it was the most extraordinary heavyweight clash of the decade. Two completely honest groups putting it all on the line and an outcome that proved Dublin are beatable. It is worth noting that this Dublin group have been taken to two replays in finals (2016 and 2019), a replay in a semi-final (2015) and that in their eight victories in finals since 2011, they have won by a single point four times (2011, 2013, 2016 and 2017).
Which brings me to Kerry in 2014. By then, Donegal had mercilessly won the 2012 All-Ireland, decapitating Mayo in the first 10 minutes, taken a year out in 2013, then advanced remorselessly to the 2014 final, having walloped the unbeatable Dubs in the semi-final, making their heads light in the process. They were heavy favourites to grind Kerry down in the final, but they were instead ground down by a Kerry team spearheaded by Kieran Donaghy. I spoke to Donaghy last week.
Me: âWhat was the key to that 2014 victory?â
Kieran: âThe culture was always excellent with Ăamonn (Fitzmaurice). Behaviour, tradition, togetherness and the group being all-important. No one better than anyone else. Total honesty. Complete commitment to the cause. Savage training.â
Me: âWhat do you mean by the group being all-important?â
Kieran : âIâll give you a good example. Austin Stacks won the Kerry championship in 2014. It was our first Kerry title since 1994. Slaughtneil then beat us by a point in the All-Ireland semi-final. I was made captain of the Kerry team for 2015. A few days before the All-Ireland final, Ăamonn rang me and asked me to meet him in a local hotel. I assumed we were going to talk about tactics. He said, âThe news isnât good Kieran. You are not starting on Sunday. We are going with Paul Geaney.â I was stunned. I just said, âI respect your decision. I will be ready if I am called upon.â I walked out of that hotel gutted. Me and Ăamonn were very close friends. It was hard for me to take but I was a Kerry man first and in Kerry, it was always about the good of the team. So I had to set aside my ego.â
Expand Close Making big calls, like dropping or substituting Kieran DonaghyPhoto by: SPORTSFILE
You may recall that in 2014, Donaghy, as he had done on his stupendous arrival into full-forward in 2006, electrified the championship, rescuing his men then destroying Mayo over the course of two immortal semi-final games, before going on to put in an MVP performance in the 2014 final, scoring 1-2 from play including the winning goal.
By the time of the 2015 final, he had four All-Ireland medals, a player of the year award, multiple All Stars and was the Kerry team captain. The group was more important than his feelings. In 2009, when Kerry were at a very low ebb, Jack OâConnor dropped Colm Cooper and TomĂĄs Ă SĂ© for a qualifier for a breach of discipline. Eight weeks later Kerry were All-Ireland champions.
There is no room for untouchables who will never be taken off regardless of performance. This is corrosive to the culture because the others feel they are dispensable and become aggrieved. Without honesty, the bonds of togetherness essential for serious success are not forged and the project is doomed.
As Rory Kavanagh said last week: âWhen the culture in the group is right, it is a great, unforgettable place. But it is a totally unforgiving place. I still havenât figured it out.â
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I donât believe it has ever been possible to sit outside Gaffneys and have a pint.
Joe is tremendous fun.
Saying Gilroy is a hero for dropping Mark Vaughan after a few pints here.
Heâll probably have an article next week saying Inter County managers have too much power, dropping lads for having a few pints.
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Vaughan was/is a wank
Iâve a lot of time for joe but heâs been writing the same few articles for the past year or so. Itâs the one about winning culture/togetherness and Cassidy being dropped.
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