Darragh O'Sé admits that he might be hitting "peak Yerra" in his Irish Times column today, as he tips Cork (Cork!) to win this weekend's Munster final. As self-effacing as O'Se is regarding the motivation for the piece, it's terrific, and can be read here.
The main reason O'Sé isn't certain about Kerry winning is his history in the fixture, and the great, self-evident, unalienable football principle that "Cork are Cork".
O'Sé then remembers some of his past duels with the Rebels, and spends time remembering one of the most iconic Cork footballers ever: Colin Corkery.
Corkery has received some lyrical praise in the past: most notably from Micheál O'Muireartaigh ("Colin Corkery on the 45 lets go with the right boot. Its over the bar. This man shouldn’t be playing football. He’s made an almost Lazarus-like recovery from a heart condition. Lazarus was a great man but he couldn’t kick points like Colin Corkery") and, less notably, from this Reputable Irish Sports Website.
O'Sé remembers Tom O'Sullivan trying to deal with his considerable threat back in 2002, to little avail. His goalkeeper, Declan O'Keefe, decided to try and do something about it, and beseeched O'Sullivan to "get stuck into him", and sort him out:
Tom, who was no shrinking violet when it came to that stuff, just looked at him and went, ‘Have you seen the size of the fucker?’
(There’s a time to laugh and a time not to laugh. This was not a time to laugh. But I only just kept it in. I was in the middle of it, trying to be all responsible and Sullivan had me nearly in stitches. I can still hear the exact tone of his voice. ‘He’s about six-foot-five and 20 stone, like!).
Corkery, to O'Sé, encapsulated much of what Kerry feared most about Cork: their unpredictability.
That’s why Cork were always an enigma. Corkery was no bigger or smaller that day than any other year we played them. But sometimes he turned it on and no matter what you did, he was unstoppable.
He was taking us to town. He was the sort of Cork footballer we hated – you couldn’t trust him to be consistent.
Read and enjoy the full column here.
[Irish Times]
See Also: 'The Fans Respond To Davy' - How Fitzgerald Has Turned Wexford Into Believers
