Authors: Donal Keenan
There was more pain ahead in 1993. Wexford met Kilkenny again in the Leinster final. It was a rousing game in which the Wexford players produced one of their greatest efforts of the period. They were a point up as the game entered its final moments, but Kilkenny’s
Éamon Morrissey scored an equalising point with virtually the last action of the afternoon. ‘Psychologically we had no chance the second day,
’
John says.
When they lost the 1994 Leinster final to Offaly George began to ponder his future. ‘I was thirty-four. I had lost something like thirteen finals. I think when Éamon [
Morrissey] scored that point in 1993 that I doubted we would ever get a break. We had been so close so often only to see victory snatched away. I was hoping and praying that day for the referee to blow his whistle. I thought it couldn’t happen to us again. It was the final straw for me and I started questioning myself. I suppose I had decided that I wasn’t going back for more. It was time to stop.
‘I got so much encouragement at the time from the people around me, my family and friends. My dentist, Adrian Rogers, had a lot of work to do with my teeth at the time and he told me I should give it at least another year. He wasn’t a big GAA man but he knew what it meant to me and gave me the push I needed. My family were also quietly encouraging me. And then
Liam Griffin was appointed as the team manager. We spoke. I told him about my doubts. He said I couldn’t retire. I had to give him a chance and the decision was taken to give it one more go at least.’
O’Connor had always admired
Griffin, a cousin, and wondered how he could be enticed into the Wexford setup. His eventual arrival would have a massive influence, though there were tough times initially when Griffin sought to impose his authority on the squad and had to take unpopular action that would affect everyone – including the O’Connor brothers.
‘He dropped John and me,’ George says, mockingly incredulous to this day at the apparent audacity of the man whose appointment he had lauded. ‘We had tested him and he didn’t back off. He had told us not to play a club game. We played anyway and he dropped us. He took the captaincy off Liam Dunne for the same reason. Any time a new manager comes in he will be put to the sword and if he survives then he is right forever. We didn’t get away with things that we had done with other managers. Griffin could hear the grass grow. He knew everything that was going on. He laid down his marker and we realised how serious he was and we bought into it eventually.’
‘
Griffin was ahead of his time,’ John agrees. ‘He was just so organised. His management embraced everything. We had some good managers before him.
Christy Kehoe was brilliant in terms of skills and fitness. But
Griffin brought something new to it. He worked on the psychology of it all, he brought in experts and he changed everything.’
George adds: ‘He [
Griffin] used to get up at 6.00 in the morning to plan the evening’s training session. He had thirteen or fourteen people in the backroom team. He was so professional and we didn’t realise it. It was done with a minimum budget. If we did something special in training we got our rewards, a pair of boots or a T-shirt. And we appreciated them and we knew we had earned it. People said at the time that there had been better teams than ours in the 1960s and 1970s. But they were missing the point. There might have been better individuals but there wasn’t a better team. We were a better team. This was a great team, guys who knew exactly what they were doing, who were tactically very aware, were very fit. Griffin said he could make us the best blockers, the best hookers, the fittest team; they were the attributes he said no one would match and he did it. We were properly conditioned, but he didn’t take away our ability to make decisions for ourselves. We could make snap decisions on the field, we could adjust.’
It took
Griffin the entire year of 1995 to create the environment he wanted. Results were poor and he had his critics, but the manager had a plan and he was sticking to it. When Wexford beat Kilkenny in the first round of the Leinster Championship by 1–14 to 0–14 on 2 June 1996, the first signs of what was happening on the training pitch were becoming apparent. It was the first victory in the Championship over Kilkenny since 1988 and a county starved of success began to believe that there was potential in this team. The next victory over Dublin was marred slightly by a hand injury sustained by George which meant he was unable to start in the provincial final against Offaly.
John made his first start of that Championship in the Leinster final at left full back alongside Colm Kehoe and
Ger Cushe. Wexford and Offaly had played six times in the Championship in their previous sixteen seasons and Offaly had won them all. Offaly had been All-Ireland champions just two years previously and the team was laced with players of great talent. They led by 1–5 to 0–4 after less than twenty minutes. The Wexford players were clearly nervous. They needed a tonic. It came in the form of a penalty which goalkeeper
Damien Fitzhenry converted. What followed was a pulsating contest that tested not just the skill but the character of the Wexford team. They showed just how much progress they had made by taking control and scoring a total of two goals and twenty-three points to win by eight points. It was a defining victory.
George was on the bench for the All-Ireland semi-final against Galway but came on after twenty-eight minutes as a replacement for John, who had suffered a head injury. It was a typical semi-final, dour but laced with some good scores from
Tom Dempsey and
Rory McCarthy. Wexford won by 2–13 to 3–7. They had qualified for the county’s first All-Ireland senior final since 1977. The dream was alive.
John was fit for the final against Limerick. George thought he might not start. But when
Seán Flood was ruled out through injury George was selected at midfield alongside
Adrian Fenlon. The game was a tough, tight affair.
Griffin had talked a great deal about the character of his team. That was tested when Éamon Scallan was sent off before half time. ‘That was when
Griffin’s preparations shone through. He had talked about the importance of decision-making on the field, the responsibility of the players,’ says George. ‘We had to think for ourselves when Éamon went off. We had to react.’ They responded positively. Wexford 1–13, Limerick 0–14. Cue wild celebrations.
‘The Oxford English Dictionary doesn’t have the word to describe what it meant for John and me, for the club, for the county and all the people,’ says George. ‘I had been at it for seventeen years and won nothing since the Oireachtas final of 1979. There was a sense of peace more than exhilaration. There was a strange sense of calmness. How important was winning? It was great, like getting absolution when in confession. It was fulfilment, the realisation of the dream that took so long. Then when it did happen life moves on. I wanted to go home on the Tuesday to milk the cows. I didn’t realise what was happening outside the dressing-room, the immediate squad. It took some time for us to understand that the victory meant so much to the people of Wexford. I was brought along on a cloud of euphoria. I think we were all struck by the elation of the people, the sense of
relief.’
John admits that, at the ages of thirty-three and thirty-six at the time, both he and George felt that they would never win an All-Ireland. Like George, once the title had been won he wanted to move on. ‘It was a moment in time. It happened and I will never forget it but I don’t want to dwell on it. I don’t even like to hear these days about the lads from 1996. I want us to move on in the county, to be talking about the lads of today. A lot of people are working very hard and we need that at under-age level. We need good minor teams every year. We need to get back to winning big games.’
George left his helmet and hurleys in the dressing-room in Croke Park that evening. He played one more club game for St Martin’s. John continued playing for a few more years and won a County Championship with the club in 1999, lining out at full forward. Their love of the game never waned. Their children are now playing and John admits it is harder watching them than it was playing.
George worked for many years on the family farm but in recent years has taken on a full-time coaching role in Wexford. His work takes him all over Leinster and beyond, spreading the gospel. His enthusiasm is infectious. He revels in the challenge of visiting schools where hurling is not played and introducing young kids to the sport. He marvels at the reach of the GAA. ‘Anywhere you go in Ireland, almost anywhere in the world you will find the GAA. There is always a connection,’ he says. His passion for the GAA emerges in a torrent of conversation.
The GAA has enjoyed enormous success, he acknowledges, but he warns against complacency. ‘Maybe it is time to re-evaluate what we are all about, what the GAA is doing for young people, the foundation it is giving them going forward in their lives, how important it is that we properly coach the people who are looking after the kids; that we don’t willy-nilly send out any person to do the job – they have to be sweet, they have to be kind, they have to be facilitators and they have to be there for the children. Egos and self-interest have to be left at the door.’
Though he enjoyed success himself as a young boy, he is unhappy about the early introduction of competition and the negative effect it can have. ‘At ages six to ten the kids enjoy the games immensely, the parents enjoy the games immensely. You meet parents from other clubs, it is social and the spirit is good. Then we introduce under-12 competition and a whole new world opens up. The kids aren’t ready for it and the parents aren’t ready for it. It is all about winning. Should we be doing that? I don’t think so. Once you put a jumper on the ground to mark a boundary there is competition anyway, there is stimulation and attention and that is how it should be. That’s the way kids operate. They want competition but not the way we parachute it down on top of them. It affects their skills, their wellbeing and their family. If a mother hears abuse being hurled at her son – we call it negative aggression – she won’t want that.
‘We need to look after our young people. As a society we lost our way. The Celtic Tiger years, look what it did to us. We had helicopters flying our children to their first Holy Communion. Were we cracked? God help us. How stupid it was. Helicopters and limousines. Where were we going? We needed to get a grip. We lost all sense of place.’
He is not a fan of PlayStation, Nintendo and the modern playthings that occupy so much of young people’s time today. ‘Playing those games is easy. They don’t require organisation. It’s just pressing buttons. That’s all you have to do to get stimulation. But you won’t see a computer make a hurler out of a young lad. The only way to make a footballer or hurler is to get out on the park. And don’t text me to say we are going to meet somewhere. Ring me up and say hello. Modern technology is fantastic in its own right. But you can’t beat the personal touch, the man-to-man chat, the cup of tea at the end of a training session. We are going too far – it’s like the man who can’t go out and have a pint in the country. It has nothing to do with drinking and driving. He wants to have his one or two pints and a bit of social interaction and are they going to abolish this altogether? Are we living by extremes?’ he asks.
He is not just concerned about the kids. While the elite at inter-county level are well catered for, George wonders if enough is being done for those who wish to play the game on a recreational basis. ‘We have people who play for the spoils at the very top and of course that is what everyone strives for. But not everybody gets there. What about the guy who does a hard day’s work and wants to play a game in the evening. Is there anything for him nowadays?’
He wants to see an expansion in social hurling so that players of every age and every level of ability have the opportunity to play the game. George recalls some lively midweek evenings around Piercestown and neighbouring towns and villages. ‘The rivalry locally was fierce. Junior ‘B’ hurling was a great example. You had the guy who was only half trained and you had the guy with the beer belly. Then you had the guy playing in goal who was smoking a fag and he’d be coughing and snorting. The sidelines used to be packed. Then a row would break out and there’d be a bit of a shemozzle. They weren’t fit enough to fight. The ball would drop in around the goal and some fella would get a stick at it and the ball would end up in the back of the net. And he would end up in the pub that night and he would have the bragging rights. And it was great. We need more of that.
‘I remember when it was first suggested we play hurling on the quays in Wexford and we were told it couldn’t be done. We said why not; let’s have a go at it. Some people said we would lose the ball into the sea or on the road. We needed insurance so we got it. We caged it up and let them off and it’s great fun with 400 young people playing there during the summer. Hurling is there to be enjoyed and played. We need to develop our games so that everyone at every age can enjoy them even if they cannot aspire to playing in Croke Park on the first Sunday in September. We need to bring back the magic.
‘I am not arguing against the elite; I admire the guys who set the standards at the highest level. They are training to professional levels. Their dedication is amazing. There is no comparison between the game of the 1970s and the 1980s and the game now. If you don’t get your first touch now you’re gone. And the fitness levels are gone out to the stratosphere. Everything is different, nutrition is better, structures are better and training is much more professional. There are disadvantages because of the pressure on managers and County Boards, especially from a financial point of view. We must keep a balance. It is index linked. It is the dream to play for the county, to play in an All-Ireland. But not everyone will achieve that so they have to be catered for. We need to give the junior ‘B’ player every opportunity to play the game.’