THE authors of the book of Jack Lynch reminiscences have come up short of a full quota of yarns, writes KEVIN CASHMAN

WORKS of letters, like fruits and pheasants, should not be presented for human consumption until they are thoroughly ripe. Where He Sported and Played, a collection of reminiscences about Jack Lynch, was published before it had quite reached full term.

A team barely short of the standard starting fifteen lined out to write this album. A firm impression is that they should have played seven or even five a side: thus allowing each man no women here to see vastly more of the ball, and to have vastly more room and leisure on it.

The book will give a fine introduction to, and a wealth of evidence of, Lynch's standing to those hereunto too young or too careless to be aware of it; albeit, at £20, they'd better be of the kidney who'll cherish the knowledge. Even those who've known all their lives that Lynch was a supernal hurler [kindly note the word 'supernal': here we do not descend to hack distinctions between 'a good player' and 'a great player'] will find in the book some new treasures. But, perhaps, not enough of them.

For example: very brief summaries are proffered, on pages 55 and 56, of the events of the Munster final of October 1941, Tipperary 5-4 Cork 2-5, and that of July '42, Cork 4-15 Tipp 4-1; with appropriate acknowledgements of wonderful performances by Lynch but without a word of explanation of that turnover of seven goals in nine months! At least half of hurling folk in Cork, and a very great many outside it, guard that secret. Sixty years onward, is it not high time for this coyness to cease? It is.

In June 1941, because of draconian travel restrictions consequent upon an epidemic of bovine foot-and-mouth disease in the county, Tipperary, having beaten Waterford, were excluded from the Munster championship. Limerick beat Clare, Cork beat Limerick, and went forward to All-Ireland victory over Dublin, the county's first in ten years.

Six weeks later, the travel restrictions were abolished, and the Munster final between Cork and Tipp was fixed for October 26 at Limerick. But the grandfather of the back door was opened for Cork: they were not ordered to put their All-Ireland crown on the line.

From that first Sunday in September, the end of the long famine was celebrated not wisely but too well. And, on Sunday morning, October 26, continued to be so: on their way to the match, a carload of Cork players inveigled admittance to a pub in Croom even though buffoonery about some version of zero tolerance was prevalent back then, too. Anyway, on the principle that sloth and procrastination are deadly sins, the hayroes did some early rejoicing over their Munster and All-Ireland double.

Nemesis was, alas! waiting on the Ennis Road. And her wrath did not cease there: the three most notable bacchanalians were most notably absent from Cork's triumphal march through 1942.

Much of the most trenchant, and elegant, writing in the volume, comes from the pen of Lynch himself; in particular, a tribute, as Gaeilge, to The Father of The Glen, Paddy O'Connell. One paragraph erupts from the page to reprehend every Sports Editor in the land. To allow the GPA to get to the financial pages with all possible haste, we graciously translate: "In these times I think that too much prominence is given to the stars. Experts and sports reporters are responsible for this state of affairs. They do not give enough attention to the ordinary members of teams anymore, and I believe that this trend has a bad influence on teams and on sport in general."

From this moment, would every hack, who does not wish to blaspheme the memory of a supernal hurler, please desist from electing and promoting The Poorish Porter Player of the Planet, The Ansbacher Achilles of the Ages, The Dublin 4 Ferdia of the RUC, and The BOI Better Man Than God.

And also desist from supplying any further slavish services soever to corporatism. Sure, those free lunches and that freer booze will be hard to 'sacrifice'. But, as Hamlet the Dane said to his Ma in rather similar circumstances "Assume a virtue if you have it not./ ...... Refrain tonight;/ And that shall lend a kind of easiness/ To the next abstinence: the next more easy;/ For use almost can change the stamp of Nature."

Another noteworthy item of Lynch's literary legacy is his letter to this paper in July 1949. And its omission from the present book does the man a disservice.

Out for one last oul' waddle comes the canard about how, at the end of an hour's brutality in the Tipp v Cork replay, Paddy Leahy asked Lynch what he thought about extra time. "'I have enough of it,' said Jack." The implication, unintentional or otherwise, of the yarn which assumes an eminent lawyer to have been walked into an admission is that Lynch said it out of lack of fitness or fortitude. And thereby activated and invigorated Paddy Leahy into insisting upon extra time, and giving Tipp the optimum preparation for it. Lynch's letter makes no reference to any conversation with anybody. But the letter makes incontrovertibly clear that he was not feeling weariness of limb or spirit; he was feeling downright disgust.

Still, by discovering a photo of Lynch's wondrous late goal in the first draw, and by appending as caption Carbery's lyrical description of the feat, the compilers redeem themselves a little and give the hurling world a 'thing of beauty and a joy forever' which, almost by itself, makes their book worth buying.

Elsewhere Lynch tells a terrific story of a clash with Paddy Bán Brosnan. The 'official' Gaelic football section begins with the Tale of Jack Diving Into The Torrent. Trouble with this is that it is related as often as the Tale of Jack and The Beanstalk, and should likewise be reserved for the very, very young. Much better to have told another one about the Bán.

Like the day the Cork midfield and half-lines i.e. Eamonn Young were winning everything, and lofting it down on top of the Bán, on the edge of the square; and the Bán climbing into the clouds, and coming down outside the 21 with the ball, and booting it back twice as far as it came. Until, on about the tenth repeat, a Cork corner-forward could take no more. As the Bán was, yet again, airborne to the maximum, yer man caught him with a most ferocious and expert haymaker to the solar plexus, or perhaps to a more vital and vulnerable region to the south. The Bán imploded, rolled over a bit, then puked and puked until he puked air. Kerry's platoon of sponge and bottle men implored "Come on, Bán; come on; we can't do without you; you're going to be all right."

"All right, is it? All right? And I after spilling me sup of porter?!" said the Bán.

Judicious pruning and grafting will make the paperback a better book. And perhaps in that we'll be told how law-abiding lawyer Lynch suffered the Glen Rovers club a sub-unit of the GAA whose Constitution proclaims a strict "non-party political" principle to be turned into a personal electioneering engine for their own Dear Jack.