‘LADS, WHAT YE did to Brendan in there was a disgrace.’ Michael Ryan is angry.
I’ve just been filleted at a team meeting after the 1996 Munster hurling final. I’m the fall guy after Limerick came from 10 points down to draw at the Gaelic Grounds.
I’d already had a taste of the verbals against Waterford in the quarter-final, when some of their players targeted me after the pre-match parade.
We played them at Walsh Park and Waterford were seeking revenge after we beat them in 1995. I was the only weak link in their eyes, having let in a poor goal on my debut. ‘You’ll let in another soft one today.’
I could deal with that, but having my own dressing room turn on me was a new challenge.
In the Munster final, we played with a gale at our backs.
Liam Cahill stuck a goal in the bottom corner, Michael Cleary picked off a line ball and sent it fizzing back over the crossbar – we were on fire.
Ten points ahead at half-time, we looked home and hosed, but Limerick came roaring back to level.
Nicky English and Pat Fox were sprung from the bench and we pushed two clear again before Limerick rallied once more, Frankie Carroll popping the equalizer over the bar in stoppage time.
Every time I pucked the ball out, it seemed to rain back over my head. Limerick scored 19 points and salvaged a replay.
I was playing in my first Munster senior final and still, at 21, a relative greenhorn.
When the game was analysed a couple of nights later, some of the more senior players were looking for a victim, and found one.
The consensus was that my puckouts were the problem and the clear message was that I was the reason we had blown such a big lead. But Michael Ryan wasn’t happy and lashed back in my defence. ‘It wasn’t all Brendan’s fault,’ he stressed.
Fr Tom was also present but decided to let it slide. I’m sure that he would have called a halt if the criticism had become overpersonal but, in his own way, he was backing me to work my way out of this one.
He knew that this would really sting but it was also a test of my resolve and would make me stronger. He managed it well, and sometimes you have to let players vent, even if there’s collateral damage along the way. I was it.
In the car on the way home, I cried. I had to let it out, but at home I never mentioned a word about what had happened. I processed the events, internalised them, and vowed to make amends.
We stayed in Cork the night before the replay and I roomed with Conal Bonnar. I tried to kill time downstairs in the hotel as I felt dreadfully anxious.
When I returned to my room, my pillows were gone, so rather than disturb Conal, I rolled my coat into a ball and used that.
Instead of acknowledging the fundamental fact that I was on the same team as this guy, I was overawed.
Conal had taken a couple of extra pillows yet I didn’t have the courage to ask for them back.
I was still working through that public dressing down and it was my first real experience of the heat championship hurling can generate if the result doesn’t go your way.
It wasn’t right but I was in a dressing room that was packed with older and far more experienced players.
Maybe I was the problem on the day but I wasn’t the only problem, as Michael had pointed out.
We should have finished them at the first time of asking but a couple of key moments kept Limerick alive. Joe Quaid, their goalkeeper, pulled off one of the greatest saves I have ever seen, from Aidan Ryan, and Nicky was denied a blatant free when Mike Nash tugged his jersey.
I was angry, but I didn’t play particularly well in the replay. Limerick scored four goals against us at Páirc Uí Chaoimh, Owen O’Neill kicking two of them.
The current Limerick manager, TJ Ryan, scored another, after I had almost cut the legs from under our corner-back George Frend as a high ball led to chaos in our goalmouth. Carroll scored the other Limerick goal and our season was over.
Fr Tom fell on his sword, part of the natural attrition. It was also the last time that Nicky and Pat wore the Tipperary senior shirt, and one of my most prized possessions is the jersey I wore in that game. I later had it signed by all of the players.
This is an extract from ‘Standing My Ground’ – The Brendan Cummins Autobiography. More information available here.
Standing My Ground, published by Transworld Ireland, will be released on Thursday, 8 October. The book will be launched by Liam Sheedy at the Dome, Semple Stadium, on Thursday, 15 October at 8pm. A week later, 22 October, 2010 All-Ireland winning captain Eoin Kelly will launch the book at the Palace Bar, Fleet Street, Dublin (8pm). Brendan will be appearing at Easons, Clonmel, on Saturday, October 17, and at Easons, Thurles, on Saturday, October 24, for signing sessions.
