THERE WAS LITTLE chance of Jim Gavin’s team being leaked to the media ahead of Dublin’s clash with Kerry last Sunday.
As is often the case, Gavin made a couple of late changes to the Dublin team with Kevin McManamon and Michael Darragh MacAuley added to the starting lineup in place of Paul Mannion and Denis Bastick.
McManamon has being enjoying his best year in a Dublin shirt and went on to kick two fine scores in Dublin’s 0-22 to 2-14 win.
But the St. Jude’s forward’s lips were firmly sealed in the build up to the game. Even his close family didn’t know if he’d start or not.
“Kev would be private enough,” his older brother Brendan said yesterday. “He wouldn’t even tell us whether he’d be starting or not.
“I actually didn’t know whether he was going to be playing or not. Even though I expected him to play because of the performances he made beforehand.
“Strangely enough, I actually rang him to ask – and he wouldn’t tell me! My own father didn’t know!
“I texted him, going ’I presume that team isn’t the team?’ And he said, ‘No, no, that’s the team’.”
McManamon was involved in the game’s biggest talking point afterwards. His shoulder on Peter Crowley was clearly a foul on second-viewing, but referee David Gough failed to award Kerry a free.
Moments later Diarmuid Connolly escaped from Kerry’s clutches and curled over the insurance score.
“I saw it in real time and I thought it was an amazing shoulder,” Brendan said. “And then I saw it in slow-motion and it looked a bit, you know, borderline.
“It probably was a free, and it’s only when you slow it down. It’s very hard to make a comment on it when you keep slowing it and you’re playing it bit-by-bit.
“It looked perfect at the time but, looking back on it, it probably was a free.”
The elder McManamon, who was a member of the senior squad for a few years under Pat Gilroy, is hopeful the Dublin star will be the first footballer from the club to win an All-Star – and maybe more.
“He’s been nominated once or twice for an All-Star as a sub, which I don’t think many people have done.
“I think he’s nailed on to get one this year and I wouldn’t say he’s far off getting Footballer of the Year if he has a good final as well.”
Brendan McManamon was speaking as Volkswagen and St. Jude’s GAA Club officially launched the 2016 Junior Hurling Sevens event. It takes place on Saturday 3 September.
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