CLOYNE appear in their second Cork
SHC county final in a row this Sunday. Diarmuid O'Flynn visited the east Cork
village that once exported genius but now prefers to keep it at home. THERE'S A quote from a Cork Examiner report of a junior match with
Cloyne against Clonakilty in 1939, the year the east Cork club won their
first county championship. "The cleverness of the small Ring on the
Cloyne team turned the tables in favour of his side; what a player he would
be if he'd grown but another inch or two. His brother was also very useful,
as were the Motherways, the Mahonys, the Briens," went the report.
In the subsequent rounds, one of which was a big win
over north Cork champions Newtownshandrum (9-10 to 4-14), the Ring brothers
continued their scoring heroics.
The small Ring, Christy, went on to become
the greatest, the most well-known, the most honour-laden player in hurling
history. You want stats?
At county level, he won eight All-Ireland senior medals (three as captain),
two All-Ireland minor, 18 Railway Cups, four NHL medals; at club level, 11
Cork senior medals, to go with that one junior title, from 1939. Most of the
above are individual records, and had there been All-Star selections in the
years he played with Cork (1939-1964) and hurler-of-the-year awards, he would
surely have set a record there too. In 1959, 1961 and 1962, three years when
Cork failed even to get out of Munster, when Ringey was 39, 41 and 42 years
old, he was hurling's leading marksman, averaging over 10 points a game in
1959.
One item missing from that fantastic list, however, is a senior championship
medal with his home club, Cloyne. Those were different times, times when work
was scarce, transport a major problem; shortly after winning that junior
championship with Cloyne, Christy Ring was city-based, playing with Glen
Rovers.
His heart remained in Cloyne, however, and every chance he got he was home,
staying with his sister, whose house backed onto the pitch, playing backs and
forwards with his old friends, with the sons of those old friends, as the
years, the decades, passed. His dedication to hurling, to perfecting the
skills, to preparation for games, is legendary, hours and hours spent in
practice, day after day, all seasons.
Today, Ringey is long gone, taken when he still had so much to offer, but
down in Cloyne, the quest for that first senior title carries on. On Sunday,
his old club, his native village, the village Ring never really left, play
Newtownshandrum, another village, another storied club, in the Cork county
senior hurling final. He would have been so proud of these new heroes; not
just the inter-county stars, goalkeeper Donal Og Cusack, defender Diarmuid
O'Sullivan, but every one of the panel, the Motherways, Sean and Declan,
Cahills Phillip and Maurice, all five O'Sullivan brothers, all three Cusacks,
all the old Cloyne names, all the newcomers, the youngsters. Inspired by the
man himself, from 1 to 30 they are modern heroes in his own image and
likeness; men driven, obsessed, with an ideal, a collective ideal. They want
this county title, like few teams have ever wanted anything. Here, in the
words of full-forward Conor Cusack, is an idea of that obsession.
"For as long as I can remember, hurling has been everything, in Cloyne.
For most of the fellas my age, the first spark was the '87 team that won the
junior county. I remember Pairc Ui Chaoimh, big game, big stadium, big crowd.
They were the men who kindled the spark in us, in the likes of Cillian Cronin
and myself. We were seven or eight, and being taken up to the park by your
father, seeing the lads out there in red-and-black. Then, when they won, the
parades in the village afterwards, the bonfires - this was fantastic, all new
to us.
"Cloyne hadn't won anything for years, '66 was the last time. We had
fierce players in that team, characters, the Lewis brothers, Horse, Bomber,
Smurf. And all three of them were mighty hurlers".
"Joe was Bomber, for obvious reasons (Joe Louis), Smurf was
corner-forward, a real goal-poacher, a dazzler, you could always depend on
Smurf when a goal was most needed, he was Jer. Johnny was Horse, a
midfielder/half-forward, powerful man.
Phillip Cahill was only a young fella then, always a fitness fanatic, but he
told us, they'd be doing laps of the field, one of the boys would say, first
man back gets a fiver, and Horse would just take off, run them into the
ground, a powerful athlete.
They were the fellas we would have looked up to, and it's great now to be
playing with who I would consider the two stars from that team, Phillip and
Deccie Motherway.
"They in turn would have looked up to fellas like Jerry O'Sullivan,
Diarmuid's father, who was on that team, his brother Timmy, Noel Cusack. In
'92 then, that team reached an intermediate final, was beaten, but you know
the way some things can stick in your mind? Well, I'll never forget Jerry
O'Sullivan that year. Against Youghal, in Castlemartyr, Jerry had lost his
hurley; a Youghal player, I think it was Mickey Downey, running in, about to
pull on a loose ball, certain goal, and Jerry dived into his swing, took the
full belt, saved the match. And people wonder where Diarmuid gets it from!
"Anyway, that was it, '87, '92, the first real exposure we had to the
kind of excitement generated when a team reaches the county final, in any
grade, and it inspired us."
Over the next couple of years, that generation went their way; almost
instantly, they were replaced by another, but the focus remained intact.
Another intermediate final in '96, beaten (by Newtownshandrum, incidentally).
"The following week they were back in the field here, training,"
recalls Conor; "it was pissing out of the heavens, but they were
determined to win it in '97."
That determination paid off, and with intermediate success, came promotion to
senior. Since then, they've been knocking at the door, a team hungry for
success. It took a few years, but in 2003 they made it to the semi-final,
came within the width of the crossbar of defeating Blackrock, when a
fiercely-hit Diarmuid O'Sullivan 20m free rebounded almost to Donal Og Cusack
at the other end of the pitch. 2004, a step further, beaten in the final by
Na Piarsaigh. A year on, another chance. "After we lost last year, it
was devastating," says Conor. "We didn't play well, fellas made
mistakes they normally didn't, and it was killing fellas. We'd meet over the
winter, wanted to talk about it, but couldn't, the pain was there. It was
critical to get back again, have another chance."
So, back to training they went, but a kind of training unheard of, on the
club scene. "We have these things called 'truth meetings', where
everyone who wants to, players and management, can speak their mind. No holds
barred, in your face. You have to able to take it, but you're being told the
truth. Mind you, you can't hold them very often! We had one of those, shortly
after the start of the year. Some of us had got back on track fairly quickly,
to the level we needed to be training at, others didn't. We all knew things
weren't right, and one night we came into training, as usual, but it wasn't
our usual session.
"Donal Og stood in the middle, explained the 'truth' theory, then went
through every player, one by one. We were there for about five hours, every
fella had his say. It was a most unbelievable group experience. When it was
over, fellas were still phoning each other at two or three in the morning.
That was the turning point in our year.
"Then there were the early-morning sessions. One evening we were told,
beach in the morning lads, six o'clock. About five miles from Cloyne. We were
doing our warm-ups, just about to start the real training, and the sun came
up over the horizon. It was just one of those moments, special, beautiful.
You were alive, with your friends, but you felt alive. And that was down to
the imagination of the people over this team, Tomas O'Brien, Cathal Cronin,
Dinny and Kieran O'Shea, Donal Og the coach, Valerie O'Sullivan, Diarmuid's
aunt, the fitness coach, and there's also Dermey O'Shea. Moments like that
stand to you. In games like we had against UCC in the semi-final, when you're
in the s**t, the pressure is on.
"And we have the ice-baths; the Cork team have an equipment van, but so
have we, these things are taken everywhere. You think you've had enough
punishment in training, but no, you still have to face the baths. Three at a
time. I'll never forget the first night. I was among the first three in.
There was a bit of confusion. It was supposed to be half a minute in the
bath, two and a half minutes in the shower, but we had it in reverse. We
could have frozen to death. I was going numb, Tomas came in, saw us
shivering, blue; 'how long have they been in?' he asked. 'Nearly done now,
2'15",' he was told. He got us out of there fast!
"We were playing Mount Sion in a challenge match earlier this year, in
Dungarvan, the ice-baths were taken out of the van, and you could see the
Mount Sion lads looking, thinking what the hell is this? Someone then has to
stay in the dressing-room for an hour and a half, filling those baths, can't
watch the match, but that's the kind of commitment within the club. Again,
people will scoff at us, but the benefits of it are huge, helps the recovery,
cuts down on injuries. But the training is excellent anyway, very scientific,
Valerie is highly qualified, no chances taken."
Truth meetings, 6am sessions, ice-baths, a female trainer, detailed video
analysis, instant attention to illness and injury. Not the world of hurling
as Christy Ring knew it, but, would he approve? Damn right he'd approve, and
he'd also approve of the new Cloyne intelligent, possession-based game-plan.
Just as Cloyne are now, Ring was way before his time in everything he did;
when hurling was still hit-and-hope, grip-and-rip, Ring was cerebral, never
did anything, on or off the field, without purpose.
"You can have all the hard work you want, but all our hard work in
training is matched by the quality of that training," says Conor.
"New ideas, new thinking, intelligence in everything we do."
To this day, Christy Ring remains a huge presence in his native town. It's
not just the magnificent bronze statue that guards the entrance to the pitch.
It's more ethereal, and yet more real, than that. He is a living force, a
presence, his essence kept alive by those who have followed. Lately, the club
crest was redesigned; like everything else in the club, it was done with
purpose.
Says Conor: "Pat Carroll, the PRO, is very creative. We have one of the
best websites in the country. He thought the old crest was too standard, came
up with something new. Two churches in the village, Catholic and Protestant,
both are on there to reflect the inclusive, progressive nature of the club.
Fifteen dots, representing the team, five red, five black and five white, red
and black for Cloyne, red and white for all those we've given to Cork.
"And there's a star, to represent Christy Ring; within that star, a
tear, to represent his sorrow at having to leave his home place, but also to
represent hope, that no other Cloyne player, no other club player, from any
small club, will ever again have to do that. That's hugely symbolic, for
us."
This Sunday, should Cloyne win, take their first senior crown, there will be
tears shed at Páirc Uí Chaoimh, on and off the pitch; there will be tears
shed by those who stayed home in the village, those in the traditional little
estates particularly; there will be tears shed in New York, by the likes of
Bernie Aherne, former star players who were forced even further afield than
the Maestro; there will surely be a tear shed in heaven, by a star that even
in the vast firmaments still shines brighter than the rest.
