Larry Ryan: Cork need to make their own film out of it
At The Film Ui Over Limerick After Pitch On The Celebrate Páirc Chaoimh Stars: Cork Daire Win Munster Shc Cork Photo By Supervalu Brennan/sportsfile Supporters In
It has been an epic spell for the Irish film industry but perhaps the most eagerly awaited domestic movie production of all was due to drop this week.
“Film it all,” are the words widely attributed to John Kiely, instructions, apparently, to one of Limerick’s media team, tasked with capturing the wildness of the Cork supporters' celebrations following the win over the champions back in May in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
Eye witnesses suggest something along those lines did indeed happen and who cares if it didn’t? The idea that full unbridled Corkness could somehow be captured in an artform is an intoxicating prospect. Even Happy Busman didn’t quite manage that.
Presumably a private test screening of the end product has been arranged this week, the kind where selected critics get to have a say in how the ending goes. The thinking perhaps being that Limerick will go to new lengths to save humanity from a repeat spectacle.
But it would be desperately unfair to deny the wider world a general release of this film. That heady evening out on the Páirc sod, as the massed Rebel throngs celebrated two precious round-robin points, could eventually rank among the great studies of excess and overindulgence such as and .
But the crucial thing now is for Pat Ryan to get a copy of this masterpiece. Cork might win Sunday through pace and skill and hunger and Hoggy’s wrists. But nobody seems to think so. They may need to go deeper into the well for this one. To double down on Corkness. And the traditional Cork answer to learning that others are watching them enjoying themselves would be ‘what about it, like?’.
If Alan Connolly is the final piece of the jigsaw, this movie could be the picture on the front of the jigsaw box.
Cork may just need this vision of utopia. We remember well the exuberance of that early weekend during covid when the first county lockdown was imposed, when Cork people were made to stay within their borders.
Even amid the gloom of global pandemic, that triggered a massive surge of well-being in Cork, as they counted their blessings with fresh eyes. Imagine being from anywhere else and being prevented from visiting Cork!
Something similar happened, on a smaller scale, this week when issues were highlighted around the supply of Tanora. A little bit of panic, sure, but also a realisation of what they have and who they are. They were drinking it in.
No. The only way for Cork to counter Limerick’s screening is to watch it 100 times themselves. Like Pep didn’t bother with a teamtalk before the 2009 Champions League final and just played motivational scenes from Gladiator, Pat must pump his bootleg copy of ‘Corkness The Movie’ loud and proud from the Croke Park dressing rooms.
He’ll probably make some shrewd additions, cut in a few scenes from early in , promising jobs in the bank for all. Work up an ending with Landers and the lads on All-Ireland final day, in the 25-year suits, racing back onto the field to welcome home Liam MacCarthy, who they’ve missed a lot.
Would Pat go even further and hold another mini celebration before Sunday’s match, make a film out of it altogether, as they’d say themselves. Run it by the S&C lads first maybe, but would it be worth having a bag and a pie from Lennoxes, while they are enjoying the show in the bowels of Croke Park. And a small sup of Beamish. Then run out the tunnel in sombreros, roaring ‘we are Cork, boy’ like Dónal Óg used do to Dalo in the parade.
Get all of this right and Caroline Currid’s helicopter will be landing on Jones’ Road before half-time.
If Limerick’s approach to motivation appears to be a small break from GAA custom, which tends to focus more on all those who have written us off coming up here today, at least we still have Jude Bellingham observing the established traditions in this area.
We have lost Ricey and Grealish to England and it's hard to say they have looked back since. But we have seen Jude in an Ireland jersey too and at least he looks to have borrowed heavily from our playbook, when it comes to getting up for it.
It’s probably been there all along, but the wider world first saw this side of Jude after the Champions League final, when the 20-year-old icon, in the Birmingham academy at eight, an international at 14, a global superstar at 17, was telling us how hard it all can be and took aim at all those people along the way who told him he’d never amount to anything. Who probably wrote him off coming up here to Wembley today.
That was the evening we knew Jude, however good he is at knitting a midfield, was truly the answer to England’s prayers. The antidote to all the hype and the entitlement and presumption. The man to bring football home is the man who can only hear the critics back home.
He was at it again after the overhead kick, answering the critics, hitting out at the doubters, telling us how hard it all can be.
This kid won't need to go to the for something for Gareth's dressing room door today.
TJ Ryan paid another apt tribute at the live Dalo podcast on Thursday night. "When he was on the radio, you could drive forever."
When you weren't driving, wasn't Mícheál also an inspiration for a certain type of individual who dreamed big, who wanted more, who could surmount any obstacle, who wasn't content to settle with their lot. They will one day get the credit they deserve for driving standards, those ingenious folk who watched the television with the sound down and listened to the radio.
: "It's going to feel like war," reckoned some geezer on the Boks side of things, as the ongoing war of words pleads for attention. Even the UFC's finest marketing minds must look on baffled at the lather some are in over a couple of friendlies.
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