Galway SHC Final: Keith Duggantalks to Gerry McInerney who, 20 years after playing on Galway's last All-Ireland winning hurling team, lines out tomorrow as player-manager with Kinvara in the county senior final.
'The white boots? I got them for a game out in America. My old boots busted. These things were flexible. You didn't have to break them in. I brought them back home in 1987 and there wasn't a word about them until I went up to Croke Park. Then the whole thing went mad. But I stuck with them," remembers Gerry McInerney, laughing at all that fuss over nothing much as he sits on wall of the pier in Kinvara.
"Supermac" has changed little in appearance since his heyday in maroon. The hair is still jet black and he chats as though he hasn't a care in the world as he watches a beautifully sunny autumnal lunchtime mosey past in the pretty town from behind the lens of a pair of Ray Bans. As Cyril Farrell might say, McInerney takes things in his stride. And in recent weeks, he has made headlines again in his own county as player-manager with a Kinvara team who are back in a Galway senior final for the first time since 1979.
"The sons of a lot of the lads who would have played on that team are with us now. Hurling was always big here in Kinvara but we could never really go places. We would go well to a semi-final or so. Like, this is my first county final ever. Even in 1994, we had a good team and were a point away from Athenry in the semi-final. When Loughrea got there against Portumna, they just beat us by a point or two.
"We had been close before so it's not that we came out of nowhere. You can train hard and get nowhere too. It is like John O'Mahony coming to Galway and you hear about the gates being locked if you aren't at training on time. And you know something is going to happen. We kind of pushed on from last year when we won our last three matches to avoid relegation. We kept that going and now we are unbeaten this year. So far, anyhow."
IT IS HARD TObelieve 20 years have passed since McInerney enjoyed storming seasons playing on the right wing on Galway's last All-Ireland winning hurling teams. He was, famously, an exile during those back-to-back MacCarthy Cup accomplishments of 1987/'88, flying home from the melting heat of the Bronx a few weeks before Galway's annual All-Ireland semi-final matches.
Given the laborious training structures and the insistence by coaches that top-class Gaelic games are a year-round occupation, it seems unimaginable now a player could jet in from abroad and successfully audition for a starting spot in just a few training sessions. But it worked for Galway.
In those years, McInerney's appearance was a sure sign summer had arrived. Although he was unassuming in a dressingroom full of strong characters, McInerney stood out on the field for reasons that went far beyond the flashy footwear.
"My own abiding memory will always be the Kinvara 'Tiger Man' Gerry McInerney who first caught my eye many years ago when he was part of a Galway schools vocational team that won umpteen All-Ireland titles," wrote the great Breandán Ó hEithir in a comment piece on these pages after Galway had beaten Tipperary in September 1988. "He must have done wonders for the morale of his team as he burst out of the defence, locks flowing, tanned legs flashing, to clear and shake off tackle after tackle and to score one unforgettable point."
A year earlier, it had been the same story. McInerney was part of a granite half-back line along with Tony Keady and Pete Finnerty but it was the novice that Ger Henderson singled out when he considered where Kilkenny had foundered. "McInerney broke us," he groaned. "He broke our hearts. Their half backs never gave us an inch."
There is, perhaps, a lesson in McInerney's story for contemporary hurlers. His fleeting, bejewelled appearances for Galway were part down to circumstance and part down to adventure. He enjoyed plenty of early success, playing under Niall McInerney on the brilliant vocational teams that Ó hEithir referenced and playing on the historic 1983 minor team that won the county's first All-Ireland at that grade. By the age of 18, he was giddy to see a bit more of the world and took advantage of the fact his sister was working in Little Rock, Arkansas.
"Bill Clinton country, as it turned out to be. It was sort of a Hillbilly place to be honest. We headed out to Florida beach for a week first. And that was about as far away from Kinvara as you could imagine. Then we went across to Little Rock and I worked there for a few months. I loved it out there. But when I got that bit older, the fact was there was no work going in Ireland then. There was no building. Plenty were leaving."
PETE FINNERTY WASin New York along with McInerney in those years. They had played in the 1986 All-Ireland final against Cork, a loss that was acutely felt after Galway's stunning semi-final dispatch of Kilkenny. At that time, long before electronic technology made communication instantaneous, living in the American cities meant you felt much further away from home. In the winter, McInerney was in the dark as to whether he would even be called back home for the championship.
"I would say Pete knew the whole time they would want him back but I never felt that way. I hoped but that was it. Eventually a phone call would come through from Cyril (Farrell) or Phelim (Murphy) or Bernie (O'Connor). And you would be delighted. But I was hurling away over there with Laois and Galway teams and the games were hard. They were tough, now. You would just get wired in. And it was good preparation.
"And then when we did go home, the competition for a place was fierce tough. Like, you were up against the likes of Seán Treacy and Tony Kilkenny for a spot. You had to come up to their standard straight away. And that was good. But to go home and play in All-Ireland finals, it was great. It was a mighty feeling."
By 1990, he was married with a young child and the family repatriated for good. McInerney played a full 10 years with Galway, retiring after the 1996 All-Ireland semi-final loss to Wexford. Since then, he has been a permanent feature on Kinvara championship teams and as he edged towards the age of 40, he began training teams. Since last year, he has been in sole charge of the senior team and has balanced his role on the sideline with cameo appearances. His days as a swashbuckling wing back are the stuff of memory though: nowadays, McInerney plants himself on the edge of opposition squares and uses all the old craft and experience to try to poach a goal or two.
He brought himself into the semi-final surprisingly early two weeks ago, coming on against Castlegar after just 35 minutes, a decision which, as hurling coach and Connacht Tribune sports editor John McIntyre noted, "bore all the hallmarks of misguided self-indulgence but the 42-year-old eventually vindicated that decision with his tremendous match-clinching goal . . . McInerney always had bottle and the passage of time hasn't diminished his bravery," McIntyre praised.
That strike must have deepened the belief in Galway hurling people there was something special and irreplaceable about the 1980s vintage. But, as McInerney is keen to point out, most of the Kinvara team are too young to remember his previous incarnation as "Supermac", the dashing exile who would light up Galway's summers and then fly off again. As for the winning goal, he makes light of it.
"Ahhh, yeah, a few balls came in and I had missed them. But I knew I was going to get one. I had it in my head I would get one anyway and have some input into the thing. And it felt great. It was nice to do something for the team. There is no point in going in if you can't do something.
"I had trained with the boys all year so I was in good auld shape. I brought the age profile of the team up a fair bit but they didn't mind. Then I got this virus and it killed me for energy. It dragged on through the Mullagh match and even into the semi-final. I think it went with that goal! It's gone now anyway."
GIVEN THE YEARSMcInerney spent away, he is continually astonished and impressed at the efforts today's generation of Kinvara players make in order to attend training. He is sympathetic to the pressures on modern players - the natural inclination to see some of the world pulling against the desire to hurl and the moral obligation to stick around summer after summer for club and county.
The structure of the county championship meant Kinvara had a four-month break at one point in the summer, a hiatus that meant they effectively had to disband and then meet up again after the Galway Races. "But boys stayed very serious about it. I suppose we were just fed up messing around."
It has been a long wait. Two decades after swooping to All-Ireland glory and All-Star success, feted as the stylist on one of the great half-back lines, McInerney gets to experience a county final. Kinvara is a fishing village on the edge of the Clare border and tomorrow is a rare opportunity for its hurling team to take centre stage in Galway's local showpiece. "That was the whole thing. How do you get in? It takes time. And we will have supporters coming in from Clare too. I would say there will be a fair few neutrals who would like to see us win the thing now."
And as always, the Galway hurling final is an indicator of the robust health of the game within the county. McInerney admits he finds it incredible his generation were the last to win a senior All-Ireland but is adamant the talent is there today.
Tomorrow, Portumna will be favourites. Their star of stars is, of course, Joe Canning, the sensational forward who seems poised to have a wonderful senior career with Galway. At some point, McInerney will make himself busy at the other end of the field, a salient reminder of the best of Galway's yesterdays. "We have a chance. We want to see this through."
The white boots are a retro' museum piece but Gerry McInerney is still running.
