Gladiator star Paul Mescal 'a huge loss to Kildare GAA'
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The tickets have already been bought. Liffey Valley cinema, Saturday night. Bryan Murphy is looking forward to it.
It's only 20 minutes down the road from Maynooth where Paul Mescal, who plays the lead role in Gladiator II, which dropped in Irish cinemas this week, grew up.
Ridley Scott directed the film and he and Murphy, the Cork man who scored 'that' goal for Kildare in the 1998 Leinster final, have more in common than you might think.
Both have been significant authority figures in Mescal's life at different stages, a decade ago in Murphy's case.
Mescal was captain of the Kildare minors at the time and Murphy the manager. There's a famous photo of Mescal and Dublin's Con O'Callaghan greeting before the 2014 Leinster minor final as respective captains.
Con went on to be a generational talent. Murphy is sure that Mescal would be a renowned figure within his own county by now too, if he'd kept playing.
"No doubt, no doubt at all," said Murphy. "He's just a very driven character. I'll give you an example, you'd often give the forwards or the defenders little scenarios to work on for five or 10 minutes before training. Let's say it's the defenders, it's a high ball into the square scenario. Who is going up for it? Who is staying down? Who is going to try to go into the pocket? Paul was the one that would be out there pulling all that together, organising it all."
Murphy has another memory, from a couple of years later, when he was managing the Kildare U-21s in 2016. Dublin were Kildare's bete noire in that period and were so again that season. Another Leinster final. This time Dublin, with future All-Stars O'Callaghan, Colm Basquel, Eoin Murchan and Brian Howard playing, beat Kildare after extra-time.
"In one of the early phases of that game, one of the Dublin players, I can't remember his name, but I can picture him, he was coming in from the sideline towards our goal and Paul just met him absolutely fair and square with a shoulder, spun the young fella up in the air, won the ball and came out with it," said Murphy.
"We talk about laying down markers, he was just one of those guys who was happy to do it, happy to lead from the front like that. He was a huge loss to Kildare."
Mescal was one of the players that Murphy had in mind when, in a 2015 interview with the Irish Examiner, the Bishopstown man said that 'in the next 10 years Kildare need to be challenging for All-Ireland honours with the quality that is coming through'.
That's not to say he's bitter, or anything like it, about how Mescal eventually packed in football, briefly joining Cian O'Neill's Kildare seniors for 2017 pre-season training before figuring the rough and tumble was incompatible with his burgeoning acting career.
"He's moved on to another level altogether," said Murphy of Mescal's A-list stardom. "I'm just delighted for him. And delighted that his football career meant a lot to him. I heard him talk a lot about Kildare this week. It's brilliant, he's an ambassador for Kildare."
Mescal gave an interview to Esquire last year in which he said that Murphy was his first idol. It was as much to do with Murphy's particular brand of coaching as his match winning goal in the '98 Leinster final win over Meath, Kildare's first since 1956.
"I'd have a somewhat different philosophy about underage coaching, I think it's about developing people, about developing characters," said Murphy, who remembers drawing Mescal out at one stage.
"One of the first years we had that group we used to get fellas to sing a song after training or a game, just to get them out of their shells. Whatever song it was that Paul sang, he rose the dressing-room roof, it was something else."
He nailed it?
"Oh yeah, I suppose some fellas are very lucky to get it all," smiled Murphy.
Still, Murphy didn't envisage such a career path unfolding for his young defensive gladiator.
"It's mesmeric really, what he's achieved in such a short space of time," he said. "It's incredible, and the way he's handled it. That's testament to the family he comes from, they're very good people."
Back in Kildare, Murphy is attempting to shove things forward again, by another means. He's going to run for the chairmanship of the county board, partly because of his frustration that the talented crew of players he worked with a decade ago never truly transitioned from underage to senior stars.
"I've thrown my hat in the ring anyway, I wouldn't be so presumptuous to say I'll win it but I'm in for it, yeah," he confirmed. "I suppose the thing I'd say is that we haven't been delivering to a sum greater than the parts. That's really the thing. What do we have to do to change that?"