Jack O' Shea - Talent and Commitment

WHEN JACK O'SHEA WON HIS FIRST ALL-Ireland as a minor in 1975, and afterwards cheered the Kerry seniors to victory over . Dublin, he could scarcely have foreseen, even in his daydreaming, how these two teams were going to dominate a decade of Gaelic football. One or other of them has contested every final since that day and the most memorable finals of the decade were those fought out between them.
The reckoning stands clearly in Kerry's favour: six wins against three for Dublin, with Offaly slipping in between them, once, to dash Kerry's hopes of a unique place in GAA history by winning five All-Irelands in a row.

But had the lanky minor from Cahirciveen indulged in such daydreaming he might well have imagined himself playing some part in these years of glory. He was already possessed by an ambition to develop his natural ability as a foot baller and claim his own place in the folk-history and lore which had begun to excite his imagination.

'When I was young, I heard people talking about the Sheehys, Mick O'Connell, Mick O'Dwyer - even great foottballers who never won an All-Ireland were not forgotten. Every Monday and Tuesday after Kerry played that's what people talked about. We were led to believe. that playing for Kerry was the pinnacle of sporting achievement and that was the goal for a young player to aim for."

Jack O'Shea has lived outside of Kerry since 1978. He has settled in Leixlip, with his wife Mary and three children, and is building up his own plumbing and heating business. He still finds this lack of local recognition strange: the fact, as he put it, that if Mike Sheehy and Pat Spillane came into Athy they would be recognised before two Kildare county players.

But he also realises that Kerry is different. Football and its lore is as much a way of life as a sport and its predomiinance is not seriously challenged by any other sport: rather like the status of hurling in Kilkenny, or rugby football in the greater part of Wales. There is also the matter of winning and television exposure and the fact that nine or ten of the Kerry team have been household names in Ireland for ten years.

A relaxed and reflective man who does not suffer from false modesty, or take refuge in the studied understatement when asked a direct question, Jack O'Shea is clearly aware of his eminence as a nationalfigure and enjoys it.

"I want to be successful at the game and my attitude is that you are playing county football for ten or twelve years, if you're lucky, and it was something I always wannted to do. My ambition was always to be a top-class player. When you have the ability you might as well get the best out of it while you can. It's no good looking back in ten or fifteen years and saying to yourself, 'I had the ability and I didn't do anything about it'."

His natural capability as an athlete showed during the only formal break in his progress as a footballer. It came when the Christian Brother who was in charge of the seconndary school in Cahirciveen banned all football when a group of students organised a soccer team. Jack points out, drily, that this was not so much a defence of Gaelic football as a natural reaction to an affront to his authority as Superior. As an alternative he introduced running, his own favourite sport, and Jack enjoyed that too; in fact he finished close behind John Tracy in one schools com petition.

But outside school Gaelic football took precedence over everything else and although there was no strong tradition of playing in his family, they lived across the road from the local pitch: the way was there to accommodate the will.

Today, at the age of 27, that strong Will, coupled with his natural ability, has accumulated honours that read like the combined achievements of a brace of successful counnties.

That minor All-Ireland in 1975 (playing at full-forward) was quickly followed by three under-21 All-Irelands, beetween 1975 and 1977. In 1978, as the natural mid-fielder he quickly turned out to be, he won the first of his five senior All-Irelands; to which can be added three National Leagues, four Railway Cups, five consecutive All-Star Awards and three Texaco Awards.

To add additional lustre to a career which may still not have reached its peak, he was chosen, with near neighbour Mick O'Connell from Valentia, at midfield on the Centenary Team of the Century.

He is as generous with praise for his team-mates and mentors, who worked as hard as he did to bring such succcess to Kerry, as he is with his time. I came to his house in Leixlip at the end of a long day spent rendering firsttaid to numerous frostbitten pipes. Then there was a visit to Matt Connor in hospital, the mandatory bedtime story without which the two eldest children refuse to settle down to sleep and then he stretched the powerful frame in an armchair and talked, drank the relays of tea provided by Mary and played videos of past matches for me until shame drove me reluctantly away in the small hours of the mornning.

How important was Mick O'Dwyer in the Kerry scheme? "He was very, very important and it is also important to say as well that over the past ten years, players with possibly more talent than players who were actually on the team haven't been brought in simply because they would not give the commitment he wanted. Mick O'Dwyer wanted players who would give that commitment. He worries more about

that than about ability, really. He has been a great bonding for the team and created one large family of us. Some evenings you would dread going into him but you would feel out of it if you didn't. If I was not really fit to train I would still turn up for training."

We talked about the two hotly-debated switches made by 0 'Dwyer, in preparation for the 1984 All-Ireland: Sean Walsh (O'Shea's partner at midfield in four All-Ireland vicctories) to full-back and centre-forward Tom Spillane to centre-back.

"Mick O'Dwyer knew what he was going to do. Maybe he gambled in the first 'match but he felt he had the fifteen players he wanted on the field. The two players concerned turned out to be two of the best players in the country this year and could well turn out to be two of the greatest players ever in those positions."

HE FINDS THE RULES FAIRLY SATISFACCtory but sees a great problem of interpretation by the referees. It is a well-known fact that players realise they can get away with certain transgressions with certain referees, which they could be penalised for by others. But the single greatest problem is the tacxie.

"Personally, I would like to see a player forced to play she ball when confronted by another. If you are stopped you should get rid of the ball, something on the lines of rugby football, or have a free given against you. I would also like to see the fisted point brought back but certainly not the fisted goal. As for the solo-run, if you scrutinise Kerry's play you will see that it is used with discretion. It is a great skill but I would like its use restricted in under-age football. In Kerry under-lO and under-12 competitions it is banned."

Discussion of the Australian experiment raises the same issue; the failings of Gaelic football as a game and as a specctacle. Jack 0 'Shea feels that spectators have' ample reason for finding a lot of what is supposed to be first-class football dull and boring. Putting a stop-watch on the video of the 1984 All-Ireland showed him that the ball was in motion [or only thirty minutes and ten seconds out of the seventy minutes.

He feels that the Australian experiment was enjoyed by both players and spectators. It could have been even more spectacular and entertaining if both teams had the same approach to the series .. But the central problem of having amateurs playing against professionals (particularly Ausstralians. who are taught at an early age that losers are Pommie sissies) created problems in the final Test.

Jack O'Shea is philosophical about the dangerous tackkling and the muttered threats of impending decapitation and says that certain instructions came from the Australian management and that this was signalled in interviews before the match. One also gets the impression that Irish retaliaation (of the post as well as the previous type) was restricted by dire warnings that dismissal in the Tests would bar a player from consideration for an All-Ireland Award.

"But I think we could improve our game from what we learned. I think the immediate kick-out helped to speed up the game. The free from the hands by the player who was fouled would be a great idea. Also, when a goal is scored, it would add something to our game to restart the match in the cen tre of the field."

He would favour the running of the Railway Cup compeetition for the next two years according to the compromise rules agreed for the Australian tour. As well as preparing a squad for the return trip to Australia it would re-awaken interest in this moribund competition.

As we watched videos of the highlights of past successes the conversation returned to the question of Kerry and Dublin dominance.

"I think the biggest problem is that most counties seem to lack the commitment. Some teams concentrate on physiical fitness and others are brought to a peak in too short a space of time instead of working slowly and surely at the thing. But most counties don't show the interest and commmitment it takes to win an All-Ireland."

In 1984 he trained for about 80 nights in Dublin and another 16-18 nights in Kerry - "the guts of a hundred nights to win an All-Ireland" - and he does not train beetween September and April. It is the commitment he sees the Dublin and Offaly players give and he sees Meath coming on as well. He also points to the Offaly hurlers and how hard they worked, picking from a very small number of first-class players to win an All-Ireland and create a tradiition.

It becomes clear that he appreciates those who strive against what seem to be insurmountable odds as highly as he respects those who are sustained by a long tradition. The Walterstown team, in County Meath, who asked him to coach them are given as an example.

"A parish of three hundred houses, not even a village, picking a team out of about eighteen-odd players and they reach the All-Ireland club championship final twice in three years. "

Commitment, appreciation and recognition are the words used most frequently by Jack O'Shea when discussing the game he loves but which he can also analyse most dispasssionately. His deep respect for professionalism again showed in a brief nash of annoyance with a commentator who attriibuted a glorious catch and clearance by him, from the Kerry square to the wing, to another player. The reason became obvious when Jack O'Shea popped up at the other end of the field, to link up with the move he had initiated and score a goal. Credit where credit is due, particularly for possterity.

Football has been very good to him, he says, and he feels part of a great national family, recognisable among followers of the game from Belfast to Bantry, always ready to advise and help in furthering the game. In this respect being a national figure makes him more keenly aware of the many problems the GAA will have to deal with in the first decade of their second century. His thoughts are well worth recordding in detail.

Highly articulate, personable, dedicated and with a veeteran's accomplishments behind him at an early age. one would dearly love to see him, in time. become the first Kerryman to be elected President of the GAA. That it should be so lucky ....