Old dog has bite for the hard road
O Se entrance helps steady ship as Rebels come within whisker of gatecrashing Kingdom again
Darragh O Se tries to escape the clutches of Daniel Goulding and Donncha O'Connor
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Darragh O Se materialises on a narrow landing and, like kids at a circus, we surge forward for a better look.
He may be prehistoric, but he still manages to move and speak. This business is old hat for an old soldier now. He wears a green Palmeiras tracksuit top, and a baseball cap pulled low over wise eyes. A small forest of journalists closes around him and the thought strikes that some of those holding microphones had yet to sit at a schooldesk when O Se made his Championship bow in '94.
There is something supercilious about the practice of questioning him. He is polite and outwardly considered, but the native roguery in his people decrees that nobody sensibly unwraps a private thought for public consumption.
So, O Se begins to talk about Cork in a way that implies Kerry might sensibly spend the coming days distributing missals and crucifixes.
"Cork threw everything at us," he sighs. "Very physical, very strong and very fit. Delighted to get a draw at the end of it. We didn't play well, but we weren't let play well. They horsed us out of it. They played as well as I've seen them play in the last couple of years. They're a big, strong, physical side and we knew that. But we didn't really counteract it, to be honest with you.
"Look, they're knocking on the door for the last couple of years. If you look at their chart I suppose, the graph is going up all the time. So it was no surprise to us. We've plenty of homework for next week to get our house in order."
There is a house rule woven into the fabric of Cork-Kerry that precludes indiscretion. And Killarney is a truly beautiful spider's parlour, the distant 'Reeks giving Fitzgerald Stadium the air of a raffia basket plopped down in a bed of pillows. You could be sold snake oil here and feel besotted with the purchase.
So the old monarchs drew a rip-roaring game and, frankly, everyone present felt a little blessed.
Cork are beginning to move from promise to tugging faith under Conor Counihan. Yet, they couldn't shake a Kerry team that seemed to be pinking on sick cylinders. Tommy Walsh was lost to a twisted ankle just 11 minutes in (hastening O Se's removal from the glass case) and, with Kieran Donaghy sitting in the stand, a hand was tied behind Jack O'Connor's back.
As the Kerry boss surmised, "Tommy going off disrupted us certainly because it took away the aerial route in. Cork were tackling well out the field, so every ball in was pressurised. Look, sure we have to learn to adjust anyway because it looks like Tommy won't be there for the next day either. So we'll have to come up with a 'Plan B' I suppose."
For a time, the only 'Plan B' available to O'Connor looked set to be that treacherous path through the Qualifiers. This Cork team radiates an athletic glow and Counihan's firmness of hand was writ all over James Masters' withdrawal after just 26 minutes of inconspicuous labour at full-forward.
Masters hadn't exactly been getting silver salver service, yet he wasn't noticeably discomfiting Tom O'Sullivan either. "Just felt maybe he wasn't going well at the time," said Counihan later. We call this laying down a marker.
energy
For so much of the day, Cork's energy was the story. Graham Canty fisted over after just 13 seconds and, when Pearse O'Neill galloped through a gaping prairie to goal in the 11th minute, there was the palpable sense of a red boot pressing hard on the Kingdom jugular.
Between them, Michael Shields and Anthony Lynch had 'Gooch' trapped in a warren of cul-de-sacs and O Se and Micheal Quirke looked to be caught in quicksand at midfield. Ageists everywhere were brandishing bad figures.
This, we were told, was O Se's 75th Championship game and, at times, that mileage sagged across the great man's gait like he was carrying an anvil in a rucksack. Yet, typically, he lobbed a beautiful score from the terrace side to close the gap to two points approaching half-time only for 'Gooch' to then scuff an unconvincing penalty wide of the Lewis Road goal.
A goal adrift at the midpoint, Kerry had a preoccupied look trotting in for tea.
To be fair, the penalty award seemed harsh, Shields' push on Darran O'Sullivan looking little more than the jousting for position you'd see at a chip van after closing. And the miss troubled Gooch like a cold hand on a bare shoulder. Just after the resumption, he got a glimpse of goal only to equivocate and pull a poor ball back that Donnacha Walsh did well to get any purchase on. It was like seeing Alan Sugar decline the offer of a profit.
With 14 minutes remaining, a sense of requiem fell across the Kerry hordes. O'Neill's point put Cork five points to the good. This was a full-blown crisis and, as they've done since De Valera's time, the Kingdom looked to O Se. What was his solution?
"You just keep doing the simple things," he sighs, as if it's self-explanatory (which of course it is). "You win possession, you keep getting into the space. I mean we've been around a long time. In tight games like that, you don't really look at the scoreboard or the clock, you just keep chugging away. Keep chipping away at the scores.
"We were lucky to get them back today, but we mightn't be so hot the next day if we let them go that long. I'd say the work we have to do is mental more than anything else. We've got to get our heads in order."
He reminds us of the Qualifier perils and the danger of getting "a gammy draw". Kerry could, he says, find themselves "up the country above in ... anywhere" and we tap our noses knowingly, agreeing that there are better places to find yourself than, well "up the country above in ... anywhere" in July.
So you can take it that Kerry will go to Pairc Ui Chaoimh on Saturday intent on restricting their summer travel to front-door entries. Winning fortifies them. Losing just plants seeds of doubt.
incarnation
O'Connor reminds us that in his last incarnation as Kerry manager, they lost a Munster final replay to Cork in Pairc Ui Chaoimh. What he neglects to say, of course, is that they took ample revenge that August in Croke Park.
No matter, this was still epic business. Gooch put over a wonder score to tie the thing in the 67th minute, taking his hour with maybe three Corkmen checking the strength of his tunic and lobbing one of those miracle points that have people touching him to see if he's made of skin or air.
But then young Colm O'Neill calmly stroked over a 72nd minute '45', earning Counihan's garland, "you know that's where men are found".
It should have been over and, against any other team, it would have been. But Maurice Deegan identified a mysterious foul, some lurid language cost Cork 10 yards and Bryan Sheahan nailed the free. So holders of the high ground now?
"I'd like to think we have an edge, having come down here and put it up to them in their own backyard," said Counihan. "So let's bring them back to Cork. But the reality is, we're gonna have to go out and do it. I'd say it'll go to the wire again."
It's written in the house rule to, at the very least, say so.
