Darragh Ó Se’s Column is Great Craic

Kerry against Cork. Munster Final. Normal service resumed. The most entertaining thing you’ll read this week is Darragh Ó Sé in his Irish Times column trying to convince his readers that Cork will beat the Kingdom. Don’t get us wrong, they may indeed do that. But it’s hard to take the great Ó Sé seriously.

Seriously? He even has the brass neck to tell us that it’s not good ole ‘cute hoorism’ from Kerry - or plamás. His rationale? A few times in the 2000s Cork caught Kerry GAA. True they did. But a Kerry man writing this? Have to admit it brings a smile to the face, fair play to him. A Kerryman wouldn’t wind us up would he?

There seems to be a feeling abroad that Wexford defeating Kilkenny in hurling and Down’s win over Monaghan mean we should expect the unexpected this summer. Maybe we should. Yerra Darragh, you’re good craic. Maybe it’s a Kingdom version of the old Monte Carlo gambling fallacy. 

“I don’t trust Cork. Never have, never will. You can never rely on them to win when they’re supposed to and, what’s worse from a Kerry point of view, you can’t always trust them to lose when they’re supposed to either. That’s why, sitting here the week of a Munster final in Killarney, I’m worried about them beating Kerry.”

In this day and age when its hard to get much in the way of straight talking out of players and management as the Championship paranoia kicks in across the country it’s a refreshing read. Darragh Ó Sé’s columns are always great craic.

A few weeks ago he told a yarn about an inter county referee who used to use the opportunity to reffing matches to acquire an O’Neills football or two for his own club. There’s no reason to doubt the story, in the GAA anything is possible and we all know it. You can see the situation where a club training session is in full flight and your man the ref arrives in the car freshly returned from a televised match, and kicks a stolen Tyrone and Kerry ball or two into the fray to join the representatives from the other counties in place. “Away reffing a match again?” ask the lads. Needless to say Darragh didn’t name and shame.

Our club manager complained the other night after a match, that a few opposition sliotars were ending up in our bag and he was rooting through to return them to their rightful owner. Our umpire was indignant “They’d a big lump of a lad umpiring above, and not once did he go to look for a ball his own team hit into the hedge. So he can’t be that worried about it. Give none of them back. Sliotars, like sideline calls, can be a matter of life and death in the GAA. It takes a man like Darragh Ó Sé to bring these things to life.

And for sure the one thing big Darragh brings to the pages of the Irish Times is a refreshing honesty. He certainly knocked the maximum craic out of his own career. He told a story a few years back how the players were doing a bit of no holds barred soul searching after a defeat, the lads were getting it all off their chest and encouraged to discuss any problems or issues they had with the set up and training. One player piped up to say his girlfriend didn’t like the tickets she was getting for matches. Enough said.

With the introduction of the mark having a more positive effect on games than the cynics and critics predicted, there has been a return to kicking the ball long, targeting the long rangy midfielder. Darragh Ó Sé would have thrived under the new rule, he was a great lad for the total aerial supremacy. The high catch and kick is revitalised as managers come to terms with how best to use it in the white heat and fast ground of the championship summer. One of the main proponents of that is Kerry. Which is why we’re sceptical of the predictions in the Irish Times yesterday.

If Cork GAA win, he’ll be full of it next week. We’ll buy it anyway for the craic. No better man.