“I remember plenty of times landing back down to club training and finding only 10 there.”
Listen, we’re all guilty of it. We’ve all hurled abuse at the club’s county player. We’ve slagged him for not being there, teased him that the club players are fitter, and we’ve probably even nicknamed him ‘County’.
That sort of stuff is alright – even if our own commitment isn’t always the best – but it’s when he’s being talked about behind his back is when it gets close to the bone. Some people genuinely believe that he does think he’s a superstar and that he does think he’s above the club. If he’s injured, he doesn’t care enough. If he plays, he isn’t playing well enough.
Darragh Ó Sé’s brilliant Irish Times column is back for the summer and it has started with an absolute bang.
The Kerry legend took an almighty stand for county players everywhere and claimed that this time of the year is the worst – when they’re trying to keep the club and county happy. An impossible task.
“You know that if there’s any small bit of a niggle you’re carrying, now is the time to let it heal. You know as well that that sort of talk won’t wash with the club,” Ó Sé said as he delivered some harsh truths.
He went one better when he railed against the culture that has now swept the nation. The one where we automatically feel sorry for the club player and use the golden child county man as the scapegoat for blame.
But Ó Sé has seen “watery” club players all over the place and he makes the point that county players are more committed, simple as that. There are, he argues, more talented players lying around but they’re not always the ones who get picked to play county.
It’s the guys who have better application and a better attitude.
“I wouldn’t be crying rivers of tears either for the poor, downtrodden club man and holding him up as being somehow more pure than a county player.
“Don’t be telling me they’re more dedicated. It’s just not true,” he said.
The ball-robbing referee, 300-mile drives and club v county. Darragh Ó Sé's column returns for the summer.https://t.co/pyyegz7xm0
— Malachy Clerkin (@MalachyClerkin) May 17, 2017
Breaking point for An Ghaeltacht man came when he travelled from Newry in Down to make it back to the other corner of the island for a club game.
They lost and he was expecting the dressing down for the team afterwards. He wasn’t expecting his commitment to be questioned though.
So he let them have it.
“I reared up and I decorated every last one of them. Managers, players, bagmen, the lot,” Ó Sé revealed.
“I let them have it, a sub-machine gun spraying bullets everywhere.
“I’m after driving 300 miles for a county league game and you’re going to tell me I’m not putting it in? You’re blaming me, a washed-up old intercounty player, for not carrying ye? Good luck with that, lads.”
That’s the crux of it. Because the fixture makers have ballsed everything up, it’s one man who’s doing his best to serve both his loves that gets it in the teeth. And if he doesn’t serve to the standard that some bystander has decided to set, then it’s not enough.
We complain when the county player isn’t at club training. Then we complain when he doesn’t win games for us himself.
Read the full column in the Irish Times.
