Examiner Irish Sport

Sonia on the run as city welcomes home world champion

by Brendan Mooney
SONIA O'SULLIVAN fans will have a rare opportunity to see her at her happiest pursuit when she runs through the streets of Cork today in celebration of her double gold medal victory in Marrakech.
The undisputed world cross-country champion, winner of both the long and short course races in Morocco at the weekend, has dispensed with the open top bus and the fanfare that goes with it.
Instead she will fulfil a promise made to the Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind last year having been forced to cancel a fund-raising run for the charity last October.
"I promised them then I would do it at a later date and what better moment than right now," O'Sullivan said yesterday. "I found it very difficult to have to cancel it at the time and I felt really bad about it.
"I've been on the open top bus and done all that before and, to be honest, I don't feel very comfortable with that sort of thing. After I had won on Saturday I thought about it and, there and then, I decided that this would be an opportunity for me to fulfil the promise I had made to the Guide Dogs and, at the same time, celebrate my win at home.
"This way I know I am really going to enjoy going home and running into Cobh."
She will arrive at Cork Airport at 11.20am and will be taken to City Hall where the Lord Mayor of Cork, Councillor Dave McCarthy, will accord her a civic reception. Then, at around 2.45pm, she will embark on her run to her hometown.
The route will take her through Cork City Centre: Patrick Street, Grand Parade, Bridge Street, MacCurtain Street, Brian Boru Street, Anglesea Street and out on the Douglas Road, Rochestown Road and on to the Cross-River Ferry at Glenbrook. There she will be joined by young runners from Cobh who will accompany her into her hometown where she will be given a rousing reception.
O'Sullivan will be met by the Chairman of Cork County Council, Mr. John Mulvihill, and the Chairman of Cobh UDC, Councillor Joe Dowling. And, along the route, children from athletic clubs and schools will have an opportunity to join the new world cross-country champion.
It will not be the first run from Cork to Cobh for O'Sullivan who, in the old days, would run home after a training session at The Mardyke Track.
And she has already had one long run since arriving back in London, on Monday night when she arrived back from Marrakech. One of the Kenyan girls in the group discovered her visa had expired and there was a lengthy delay at the airport.
"I went upstairs and bought the papers — all the Irish papers were sold out so I knew there had to be something good in them — and we stood around reading the English papers," she said. "I had an appointment at 6pm and I knew I wasn't going to make it in the traffic so we all decided to run back and we made it on time."
The group included O'Sullivan's agent, Kim McDonald, US athlete Bob Kennedy and five Kenyans.
The new world champion confirmed yesterday that she will not compete in the Balmoral Castle race at Easter, explaining: "The cross-country season has ended for me right now and I will relax, enjoy it and prepare for the track season."
Her prime objective will be the European championships in Budapest but she intends to take in all the major meets.
"Last weekend was just fantastic. I suppose it hasn't really sunk in yet and I want to enjoy it. I'm really looking forward to going home and I think the way I'm doing it makes it even better."

Vivid illustration of Corofin fire, pride

NETWORK 2's The Grip backed a winner in every sense with their decision to join Corofin for the build-up to their All-Ireland Club Football Final against Erin's Isle.
As a vivid illustration of the pride and passion invested in Gaelic games at local level, this modest but eminently enjoyable documentary could hardly have been bettered.
Historical context was provided by old timers congregated in Raftery's pub who supplied sepia-tinted memories of county finals gone by, including one in which a player lost his life following an accidental collision. "It threw an awful dampener on the celebrations," was how one man remembered the long ago tragedy. Back in the present day, the new generation stood on the threshold of making history themselves, with Corofin rated an outside chance to become not only the first Galway side, but the first team from Connacht, to lift the All-Ireland title.
Ominously, captain Ray Silke was interviewed at a training session sporting a Spurs hat, but if his head was in the panic zone, his feet were firmly on the ground. Cool and articulate, he spoke about the six years of effort that had taken the team to the eve of Croke Park on St Patrick's Day, an achievement which had already inspired local kids to send off for specially commissioned replica kits in the Corofin colours, instead of the usual imports from Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow.
For all in the community, the exploits of the local team were clearly a source of immense pride — "pride in the jersey, pride in the club, pride in the parish" as one man put it. But beneath his Spurs hat, Ray Silke kept a cool head, as the rest of parish whooped it up in anticipation of a perhaps once-in-a-lifetime day out — winning may not a matter of life or death, Silke maintained, but Corofin fully intended to return from Dublin with the ****** End of block 4 title. And they did. 15 points to 10 was the convincing final tally, the action as captured by the RTE sports department neatly augmented by The Grip's own touchline camera.
Appropriately enough, the final image was of presenters Ryle Nugent and Sally McArdle surrounded by a jubilant throng on the pitch — thanks to this excellent programme, Corofin old-timers 50 years from now won't have to rely on sepia-tinted memories to recall their greatest sporting triumph.
From nostalgia in the making to sheer old-fashioned nostalgia, Action Replay's Ireland versus the USSR from 1974 was a treat from beginning to end, especially for those of us who were there but managed to see only glimpses of the action through a dense forest of heads. My abiding memory of that day is of being caught up with a school friend in the crush at the Peter's Road entrance . Such was the pressure of bodies that when my entire wealth at that point — a 50 pence piece — slipped through a hole in my pocket I was unable to bend down to pick it up, even though I could see it glinting teasingly on the ground.
Meanwhile, some enterprising person commandeered a ladder from a nearby house and hundreds used it to scale the turnstiles. When myself and my mate, clutching our pre-paid schoolboy tickets, were forced into and out of the turnstiles like peas from a pod, we emerged on the other side to see gardaí catching the ladder brigades as they scrambled down off the roof of the turnstiles — before sending them on their way on into the match. At that stage, there was little else they could have done.
Hundreds more, as Action Replay reminded us, proceeded to take up position on the roof of the Shed, something which, in these post-Hillsborough days, would be simply unthinkable. But this was a different era, a time when commentator Jimmy Magee could calmly note that their vantage point was "unsafe — but the view is good."
Certainly it was better than mine from the very back of the terraces, which is why it was such a pleasure to enjoy once again a game which Magee rightly characterised as "arguably our greatest ever performance at international level" up to that point. Old boy Giles and new boy Brady in midfield; Heighway tormenting the full-back and Givens with his memorable hat-trick — not only was it an outstanding result, but a display of quality football such as we never saw, even at the height of Jack Charlton's success. And just to put the icing on this particular cake, there was Ray Treacy retelling that legendary story about Terry Mancini during the playing of the national anthems. "I hope ours isn't as long as that one," whispered Mancini when the first anthem ended. "That was ours, Terry," Treacy patiently explained.
Finally, it was nice to see Ardal O'Hanlon — Fr Dougal — turning up as a guest pundit on Channel 4 for Parma versus Juventus. In a nice echo of Fr Ted he appeared at half-time in the company of James Richardson, studying tiny model players. "You see, Ardal," Richardson explained, "these are small — but (pointing to the pitch) those are far away.
Still, there were no flies on Mr O'Hanlon. Though Juve were two down at this point, he correctly predicted the final result of 2-2. And he also alerted us to the fact that an upcoming "Ted" will feature a five-a-side over 75s' game between the priests of Craggy and Rugged Island.
You have been warned.

Injured Allstar Leahy causes Tipp rethink for Thurles clash with Cats

JOHN LEAHY is ruled out of Tipperary's National Hurling League tie on Sunday against Kilkenny at Thurles. The Allstar damaged his knee in the latter stages of the game against Laois last week and was unable to train this week.
Tipperary will also be without centre half back Liam Sheedy who was sent off against Laois and is suspended. So back into the side come Colm Bonnar and Declan Ryan who were unavailable last week. Minor star Paul Kelly who went on as a sub against Laois is included in the starting line for the first time. Darren O'Connor loses out in attack.
Following the comprehensive defeat by Cork, Gerald McCarthy and his co-selectors have, not unexpectedly, rung the changes for Waterford's visit to Portlaoise on Sunday and a tricky NHL tie against the home county.
Cork-based garda, Peter Queally, who will be assisting Sarsfields in this year's county championship, has been dropped and his left half back berth is now filled by Brian Greene who featured at wing forward in last Sunday's game.
Queally, who was replaced at half-time by Micheal White in the game against Cork, can, however, consider himself somewhat unlucky to be the one to lose out. He had been consistently impressive in earlier games but left much of that good form behind him at Fraher Field.
The selectors had to plan without the suspended Tom Feeney who was dismissed early in the second half of last Sunday's game. In a reshuffled defence his right half back berth goes to team captain Stephen Frampton, with former Tipperary minor and Under 21 player, Brian Flannery, named in the right corner.
Flannery, who formerly played his club hurling with Kiladangan in North Tipp before transferring to Mount Sion, made an impressive debut against Kilkenny in the South-East league last month. However, he picked up an injury in that game which sidelined him for a spell, and then found himself unable to get back into the side.
However, the many question marks posed by the fleet-footed Cork forwards have reopened the doorway of opportunity for Flannery and he will be anxious to make the most of this second chance for Waterford.
The midfield pairing of Tony Browne and Gary Gater is deservedly retained, despite the fact that neither player was at his best last Sunday, but wholesale changes are made in an attack that made little headway against the rock solid Cork defence.
Twenty-four-year-old Anthony Kirwan, who played at wing back on the Waterford team that lost to Galway in the All-Ireland minor final of 1992, is given a surprise call up at full forward. This will be Kirwan's debut on the senior team, and if he can provide the answer to what is proving to be a very troublesome number 14 berth then it will be a real bonus all round.
Ger Harris moves from wing to centre forward in a direct swap with Ken McGrath, while Dan Shanahan is switched from corner to right half to fill the vacancy left by Greene's transfer to the defence. Billy O'Sullivan, who started last Sunday's game at full forward, reverts to his more favoured corner spot with his Ballygunner clubmate, Paul Flynn, again holding down the other corner berth.
After an excellent away victory over Tipp in the opening round, the team was brought crashing back to earth by Cork last Sunday. "We have simply got to win next Sunday to retain a realistic chance of advancing to the league semi-finals," Gerald McCarthy commented.
TIPPERARY: B. Cummins, W. Hickey, C. Gleeson, M. Ryan, G. Flanigan, Colm Bonner, Conal Bonner, R. Ryan, L. McGrath, P. Kelly, D. Ryan, A. Ryan, L. Cahill, E. O'Neill, M. Kennedy. Subs: F. Horgan, B. Horgan, B. Gaynor, J. Carroll, D. O'Connor, A. Moloney, J. Enright, K. Tucker, A. Butler.
WATERFORD: B. Landers; B. Flannery. S. Cullinane. M. O'Sullivan; S. Frampton. F. Hartley. B. Greene; T. Browne. G. Gater; D. Shanahan. G. Harris. K. McGrath; B. O'Sullivan. A. Kirwan. P. Flynn. The substitutes will not be finalised until later in the week.

Ireland's rugby team must find cure for bad case of the yips

Diarmuid O'Flynn
LOOKING at this week's Five Nations table, I can't help but feel aggrieved at our position in the win/loss columns.
It reads: 0 wins, 3 losses, which of course isn't at all accurate. It should read: 3 wins, 3 losses.
Even though we lost to Scotland, France and Wales, on each occasion, we beat ourselves. And that's not an argument, that's fact.
I've always claimed that such is my luck, if I was in a raffle on my own, I wouldn't win. Well, it's beginning to look somewhat the same with this Irish rugby team. If they were alone on the pitch, they would still find a way to avoid a win. In fact, if I was Warren Gatland, I'd be nervous about taking on the scrum machine in Limerick next week. If they didn't have bad luck, they'd have no luck at all. And it's showing in their complete lack of confidence.
At half-time in last Saturday's international, I was forced away to matters urgent, but left with reasonable confidence that Ireland were on a sure winner. They looked in a different class to Wales and, Clarke's jitters under the high ball aside, were playing with authority. So, turning on the video, I headed away with confidence — we were going to win this one.
A Scramble in golf is a competition that offers a little something for everyone. In a fourball scramble for instance, each hits off the tee, then each plays their next shot from the position of the best ball of the four. And so it goes, until the ball is in the cup.
Golf is funny oul game — one of the greatest truisms in any sport is this one on golf: drive for show, putt for dough. The game is won and lost up around the greens. That's where you need the cool nerve, the killer instinct. In my first full season taking golf seriously, this is a fact I'm learning rapidly.
Now, from years of hurling, I can drive a ball. No bother, distance no object. But up around the green....
The fourball in which I found myself finished the nine hole competition in four under par, could easily have been five or six under, and took first place. We dove-tailed perfectly, as fine an example of teamwork as you could see. We had the long hitters, the short but straight iron players. And we had the putters. The ones with the nerve, confidence and will to stand over any putt and expect to drain it, or leave it to tap in. (I won't mention names, in case Charleville would be tempted to cut Lil O'Connor, Joe Lyons or Eamon Maguire!).
Ireland lacks those putters. The killers, the ones who can stand over the ball with the end in sight, with confidence.
If there's a rugby equivalent of 'the yips', we've got them. And it's a tragic sight. Even for neutrals — and I guarantee ye there are thousands of rugby fans in Wales, Scotland, France and England who feel for us. But there it is.
Brent Pope got it right on RTE's excellent programme on Saturday, the problem is now psychological — we've lost the will to win.
However! I have no doubt we'll get it right. Sometime. I just hope it's in time for Twickers.
There are those for whom this past weekend was an unmitigated disaster, a catastrophe. I'm afraid I never took sport that seriously (which perhaps isn't a great reflection on me in this occupation, but there you are). I look to sport to give me good feelings, positive vibes.
If there's failure, well, I'll sup my bitter cup with the best of them, but as long as there's good honest effort by whatever team or individual I'm supporting, the disappointment isn't so acute. And I still see a huge effort by Ireland. Will to win Warren, will to win.
But of course, the sporting story of the week was Sonia O'Sullivan.
Again, if there was ever a case of 'the yips' in athletics, it was Sonia O'Sullivan over the past few years.
And most of us who had shared in all her successes over the years now shared in the pain.
Unlike the equally professional and equally hamstrung Irish rugby side, there were few brickbats flung at Sonia.
But now she's back. And what a pair of commanding performances! Not one, but two world championship gold medals, in two days. Absolutely majestic.
Between herself, Caitriona McKiernan and Michelle de Bruin, we're blessed with three world-class athletes at the moment.

Cork selectors stick to their winning formula

NOT unexpectedly, the Cork hurling selectors have kept faith with the team which started last Sunday's game against Waterford.
They have named the same 15 players, in the same positions, for next Sunday's National League third-round game with Wexford in New Ross (3pm). It means that Alan Browne and Michael O'Connell, who were both replaced, will again line out at full-forward and left half-forward, respectively.
Big Ger Hegarty is back in the frame with Limerick after almost three years in the wilderness.
The Old Christians man, who publicly declared two months ago that he was fully ready for action again after a serious leg injury, is given his big break on Sunday against Galway when he lines out at full forward as the League champions plan to extend their unbeaten run to three matches.
Hegarty has not played serious hurling since the 1994 All-Ireland final in which Limerick were sensationally beaten by Offaly.
This is just one of five changes from the team which beat All-Ireland champions Clare at the Gaelic Grounds on Sunday.
Out go Clement Smith, Mike Houlihan, Shane O'Neill and T.J. Ryan as well as all star Gary Kirby. Making their return with Hegarty are Jack Foley, Ciaran Carey, Anthony Carmody and Owen O'Neill.
It will be Carey's first time starting a match in the league this season. He came on as a sub against Clare as did Jack Foley and O'Neill.
Manager Eamon Cregan and his selectors Canon Willie Fitzmaurice and Dave Punch insist they are continuing with their policy of giving opportunities to all those involved in the panel.
The match has been switched from Ballinasloe to Athenry. In the corresponding game last year Limerick suffered their only league defeat 1-24 to 1-10 but three months later gained ample revenge in the final at Ennis.
Clare have made some changes from the team which lost to Limerick at the Gaelic Grounds last Sunday for the engagement with Dublin at Parnell Park.
Most of these changes are in the Banner's attack, which disappointed last week.
Ollie Baker has recovered from the leg injury which forced him to cry off last Sunday and he comes in at centre forward. Fergal Hegarty switches to the left wing with David Forde going to the right corner.
Niall Gilligan takes over at full-forward. The experiment of playing Brian Quinn, better known as a defender, at full-forward, has ended and the Tulla man reverts to corner back in place of the unavailable Anthony Daly.
CORK: G. Cunningham; F. Ryan, J. Browne, D. O'Sullivan; M. Landers, B. Corcoran, S. O´g O´ hAilpín; M. Daly, P. Ryan; B. O'Driscoll, F. McCormack, M. O'Connell; S. McGrath, A. Browne, J. Deane. Subs: D. O´g Cusack, S. Barrett, D. Murphy, P. Mulcahy, S. O'Farrell, B. Egan, A. Walsh, K. Murray, R. Dwane, D. Barrett.
LIMERICK: J. Quaid, S. McDonogh, P. Carey, D. Nash, D. Clarke, M. Foley, J. Foley, C. Carey, A. Carmody, J. Moran, O. Moran, M. Gilligan, O. O'Neill, G. Hegarty, B. Foley. Substitutes will be named later in the week.
CLARE: D. Fitzgerald; M. O'Halloran, B. Lohan, B. Quinn; L. Doyle, S. McMahon, F. Lohan; C. Lynch, C. Chaplin; J. O'Connor, O. Baker, F. Hegarty; D. Forde, N. Gilligan, A. Markham. Subs: J. O'Brien, C. Clancy, R. Woods, T. Fahy, B. Murphy, P. O'Rourke, F. Flynn, D. Hegarty, T. Corbett.

Cahalane's future still in balance

NIALL CAHALANE'S appeal to the Munster Council against the 12-month suspension imposed by the Cork County Board has yet to be heard. Cahalane lodged the appeal within a week of being suspended - after an incident involving the referee in the County final replay between Castlehaven and Beara. However, at his request, the hearing was postponed following the death of Cork footballer Mick McCarthy in a car accident.
Finally, after a date was set for the hearing following the recent provincial convention, Cahalane turned up for a meeting last week-end. But, the matter wasn't dealt with because of a reported malfunction in the showing of video tape recording the incident.
Accordingly, it was decided to defer the appeal to the next meeting.
Other than through a successful appeal, Cahalane's only hope of being able to play with his club in this year's championship would be through a reduction of his suspension by the GAA's 'Mercy Committee.' Their meeting, by coincidence, is fixed for next Friday night.
The Committee, chaired by Association President Joe McDonagh, adjudicates on appeals for clemency from members at all levels, including from units overseas. However, such appeals must be recommended for leniency by the body which imposed the original suspension.
*Meanwhile, Maurice Fitzgerald has begun his comeback. Out of action with Kerry since the second round League game against Wexford last November, he made a return to club action at the week-end. He turned out with St. Mary's, in a county league game with Lispole, in Cahirciveen. Fitzgerald, the star of Kerry's All-Ireland victory over Mayo and outstanding again in the opening League game against Cavan in New York, was sidelined after receiving a serious knee injury in a club game.