Gooch has no beef with UCC’s championship involvement
By Brendan O’Brien

It’s a debate that habitually generates heat — or maybe just hot air — in the dead of winter but Colm Cooper isn’t raising any objections to the fact that Dr Croke’s will face a college side in next Sunday’s AIB Munster Club Football final.
Many of the same arguments have been made for and against the divisional sides whom the Killarney club have been competing at local level down the years, winning some and losing others. Gooch? He just takes it all for granted, as he explained yesterday.

"I’m sure they have got invites from the county board to play in the championship," he reasoned in Dublin.

"That’s a choice for them to make. That’s an issue for every county board if they want to have colleges in their flagship competition."

Truth be told, he had given it next to no thought until asked about it but he can see how some clubs struggling to make up numbers due to emigration and unemployment could take umbrage at college teams with such a pick.

None of that will matter this Sunday in Killarney when the Cork and Kerry champions meet at Fitzgerald Stadium but the presence of UCC has added an interesting twist to the decider thanks to such a sizeable Kerry contingent in their ranks.

Two of that number — Johnny Buckley and Daithí Casey — are Crokes men who won Cork county medals with the college before pinning their colours to their home club’s mast for the tilt at Munster honours.

"They know plenty about them. But even leaving that aside there are nine Kerry lads involved so we’d know a fair about them anyway. Having them involved will give us a big understanding and hopefully might help us."

Casey’s story brings the colleges issue back into focus.

The young forward is coming to the tail end of a year in which he won a Sigerson Cup title with UCC and lined out for club and county at U21 and senior levels and Cooper agreed it asking a lot of one man. "I can only guess how many games he has played this year. If you are looking at that there may be an issue with burnout. That’s a delicate one. It would certainly be worth a debate to see what the best options there would be."

All of which is interesting material and worthy of a debate but one held in sitting rooms and on barstools. Sunday’s proceedings will be settled on grass and Cooper’s motivation will be gleaned partly from last year’s defeat at the same stage.

Nemo Rangers were 13 points clear at half-time in Mallow in a game that finally got the green light in late January after two postponements, the same number of venue changes and an hour delay because of a frozen pitch.

"They beat us out the gates. For whatever reason, we were down 13. Nemo steam-rolled us, really. We played a bit better in the second half but the damage was firmly done. That was the most disappointing aspect of last year’s championship run."

There is no easy way to lose a final. Cooper received further evidence of that two months ago when Kerry let slip an All-Ireland in the final quarter against Dublin and thoughts of redemption will span the off-season with little difficulty.

As was the case 12 months ago, Kerry walked towards the off-season with talk of retirements snapping at their heels but the mass exodus has failed to materialise. Not just that, but Sean O’Sullivan is back on board as well.

Another man signed up for 2012 is Cooper’s clubmate Eoin Brosnan.

"That’s what I’m led to believe. He is enjoying his football. He is probably our best player in Crokes this year. He did a very solid job for us with Kerry. From his point of view he’s probably saying ‘while I’m enjoying it why would I stop?’’’

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Tuesday, November 29, 2011