Hurling Interview with Dublin hurling manager Humphrey Kelleher: Tom Humphries hears the new man's views on what's needed toeradicate the Poor Little Old Me syndrome that has bedevilled hurling inDublin

Picture this. Kevin Flynn , the Dublin hurler, picks up the phone and calls Humphrey Kelleher, the man who didn't go to school but who met the scholars.

"What's the story?" asks Flynn.

"Well I 'm going to sit down and meet the players next Tuesday night," says Kelleher.

"Good," says Flynn.

"What's going on with the lads?" asks Kelleher.

"Well, they're all asking me, 'who the f*** is Humphrey Kelleher?' " says Flynn.

Humphrey Kelleher smiles as he tells you this story. He's in his office in the Bank of Ireland in Raheny, an office festooned with hurling stuff. Old photos. Scribbled thoughts. Volumes of notes from well-wishers.

"So who am I?" he says.

You don't need detail. His CV, like Dublin hurling itself, is all about the past. His plans are for the future. The new Dublin hurling manager has been involved in hurling in the county for over 30 years. He's from Waterford. From Abbeyside, on the fringes of Dungarvan. Once upon a time he played with legends like Austin Finn and Duck Whelan. He played against Tom Cheasty.

He had a short senior career mainly as sub goalie to Paul Flynn's father, Pat. At underage he radiated potential in both football and hurling but in Waterford there's only so far you can go. He played minor football on Jimmy Deenihan once, an experience akin to being made invisible. He knows how Dublin hurlers must sometimes feel.

He came to Dublin with the bank in 1972. Two years later he played a senior season with Waterford. He makes no great claims for that.

"I played against Clare in the West County Cup in Ruan. I think they brought in the rule about not touching the goalie on the basis of what Gus Lohan did to me that day in Ruan. I had a goalie's hurl with a huge bas and John Callinan came in and blocked me down and suddenly I had a stump. Next thing I caught a ball and I remember this, my wife to be was standing right behind the goal. Next I remember was the shadow of Gus Lohan and then I remember being picked up in the back of the net. She was there shaking her head slowly."

A few weeks ago he was working on the programme for the symposium on Dublin hurling with Michael O'Grady and Diarmuid Healy and they asked would he be interested in the job of managing the county team. He talked it over at home, wary that he'd already taken on the captaincy of his golf club, The Island, for 2003. Given a domestic mandate, however, he went forward.

"And if I needed some ratification it was in that symposium a couple of weeks ago where people just said 'skills, skills, skills'. There's no great mystery. For Dublin it's just a matter of adapting the skills. We have to identify where the gap between the top counties and ourselves is.

"Look at Stephen Hiney and Conal Keaney, they have filled that gap playing for Leinster this year. They weren't considered weaker guys on that team. We need 32 guys who can do that. It's a skills gap, a mental gap."

He'd talk about hurling till the cows came home driving sportscars. His itinerant career in Dublin involved stints with Young Irelands, Erin's Isle, Beann Éadair, Naomh Mearnóg. At the latter two clubs he had successful stints as manager.

Nothing big. Again he makes no extravagant claims but he left teams better off than when he found them. He tells you two stories. The first sets alarm bells ringing. The second switches them off.

He was in charge of Mearnógs the night they won their first ever senior league game. They beat Scoil Uí Chonaill one evening to mark the beginning of a successful struggle against relegation. Kelleher walked into the dressing-room afterwards and said: "Isn't that a great feeling lads, let's do it again."

And he walked out again. He tells you this and you see the captain of the golf club. You discern none of the rawness of Dublin hurling. None of the passion and yearning. So he tells you another story, the one that hints at what other people have told you. There's a hardness there too.

A few years back he was named as a trainer for the Dublin intermediate hurlers. Named, as is often the case, just so a name could go on the programme. Named too late for any training to get done. They were to play Wexford in Parnell Park at 7.30 one evening. He was told everyone would be meeting at 6.30. He didn't like what he heard and got the assembly time brought forward to 5.30 and arranged some soup and sandwiches. The least that could be done.

In the dressing-room an hour before the game the jerseys were turned out in a heap on to the floor and somebody commented that the only good thing about the night was they'd each be getting a free jersey. Somebody nudged Kelleher and told him not to forget to get his free Arnotts top. He snapped.

"Lads," said this stranger in a roomful of strangers, "can I have a word?"

Silence.

"Sit down lads."

Silence.

"Does anyone here believe we have a chance to win this game tonight?" Silence.

"Do they?" Some grunts. Some shaking heads.

"Well lads, take your free jerseys would ye, and f*** off home. Don't waste your time. What's the point?"

Shocked silence.

They got annihilated but a dozen players approached him afterwards and said they appreciated that somebody cared enough even to be angry. It made him think - not for the first or last time - that Dublin hurling deserved better.

"We have problems here. Look at the quality of club matches in Dublin. We reach a certain standard and we're happy with that. The test is when we go out into Leinster. There's a gap. The standard, the intensity, the quickness of the play. Same game, different intensity.

"I recall bringing Brian Lohan out to talk to the Mearnóg players. They asked what had Ger Loughnane given Clare and Lohan said the ability to do things under pressure and at speed.

"We have other problems. Simple things. We should play with first-rate hurleys. I have seen so many second-rate hurleys in Dublin. That's a small thing. And our culture. In a club match outside Dublin a fella gets a belt of the shoulder and it's done with, he plays on straight away. Here the ref will blow it up. Are we conditioning people to moan and groan and look for excuses?"

For Kelleher football is another cop-out. Dublin hurling, he says, suffers from the Poor Little Old Me syndrome. There's a problem for every solution. Right now football is the problem.

"If we come up with a product in hurling that's top class we won't have to worry about football. In 1971, 1972 and 1973 Dublin hurling was on a level with Dublin football. We had a football All-Ireland in 1963 and nearly won a hurling All-Ireland in 1961. But the footballers got there first. They made football the game.

"Fellas like Jimmy Keaveney were hurlers first but they were afforded the opportunity to make football fashionable. We have to admire the people who brought on football. Good luck to them. Good luck to soccer and rugby. We have to take responsibility for our own game. We have the best and finest game in the world: we aren't managing it properly.

"There is a problem further down. We aren't organised enough. We complain about lack of games. There has to be somebody there to provide that level of activity for younger players. We have a lot of talk and a lot of intentions in Dublin but we need to have people who will be there 30 weekends a year, minimum, to bring players out to hurling games and give them the right amount of training in between times.

"Alright, the Brothers are gone and teachers don't coach so much but what about all the former players who talk about hurling? What are they doing to develop the game? It's Poor Little Old Me again. We have to make it happen ourselves. Have we the resources? Yes. Have we the inclination? No, we just like talking. Put your bloody shoulder to the wheel and do it."

So on Tuesday night he'll challenge Dublin. He'll have a flip chart and he'll be asking questions. What are they prepared to do? What do they want him to do?

He sees the troubles ahead. The dual-player issue will last longer in Dublin than anywhere else.

"Listen," he says, "it's preferable if a player can make a choice but there are players who have achieved skill levels in both codes. We aren't comfortable enough to be able to tell them go away and do one or another.

"I saw Shane Ryan play against Lucan Sarsfields recently and we (Mearnógs) scored 1-11 and Shane scored 1-6. His hurling ability exceeds everyone else's to that extent. Do you write him off because he plays football? We don't have that luxury yet. At 50 per cent of his hurling ability Shane can do that.

"I want him to hurl. So there has to be an accommodation for exceptional talents. It's up to the players to decide. If we have the team and the environment they'll come to us. I want them having their hurling at 100 per cent.

"That's the only level that is acceptable but I'm saying his commitment hasn't to be 100 per cent. He can have football in his life but he has to make sufficient commitment to hurling to have his skill level in the game at 100 per cent."

He talks on. People have wondered aloud as to whether he will be a county board "yes" man. He doesn't understand the hang-up with the County Board.

"These boards are functionaries. They facilitate. If the people in the clubs want to play more hurling games the board will facilitate that. All these things that we moan about come from the bottom up. We complain about them in the context of our own sectional interests.

"Look, you could count on the fingers of one hand the teams with a chance of winning the Dublin senior hurling title in the next 10 years. We sacrifice so much for that. Imagine if there was no county championship for a year and we did the work and won a Leinster title. Imagine the impact. It's an irrational thought in Dublin, though. We all want to win our little county title and then get knocked out in the Leinster club championship but what do we want to do for hurling in Dublin?"

His mantra is "skills, skills, skills". Skills and confidence. He cites a prominent Dublin hurler who has the physique to win the ball but not the ability to strike it with players around him.

"Compare that to, say, Michael Kavanagh. How often do you see him blocked? Guys in Dublin get the ball and go in a straight line till they get blocked or hooked. They don't have the skill to buy the time."

In Naomh Mearnóg he developed a system called On The Tape. Instead of merely asking players to change their grips and use a short stick he put a bit of tape on the hurl and demanded that the players had to have their hand on the tape when they were striking. They played conditioned games On The Tape.

"Guys want the big wind-up when they strike but look at Joe Deane and Setanta Ó hAilpín. A big guy and a little guy, they both have the shortened grip down to an art.

"And our first touches in Dublin just aren't there. That's more time lost. Look at JJ Delaney, the speed of ball to hand he has. That's the level we need to work towards."

It's late. The bank is closing up. There are calls to make. Humphrey Kelleher could talk till dawn about this stuff, though. Dublin is full of people who can do that. Those who put the shoulder to the wheel are a rarer breed. One of them shows you to the door of the bank and then he lets you out. Work to be done.