GAELIC GAMES: KEITH DUGGANtalks to the former Galway hurler who crowned his career by playing a pivotal role as Clarinbridge claimed their historic first All-Ireland club hurling title
‘IT WAS a funny old game, the way it turned out,” muses Mark Kerins. The Clarinbridge man is talking about the All-Ireland club hurling final in which he starred on St Patrick’s Day but he could well be summarising his entire hurling life.
After a series of near misses dating back to his days moonlighting as a goalkeeper with the Galway minor vintage of 1996, Kerins has at last collected an All-Ireland medal. He hasn’t officially taken ownership yet; the presentation will be held in a hotel in the city in a few weeks’ time. He can wait a few more weeks for it.
“Not sure what I will do with it,” he says, offering a crooked grin and glancing around his living room. Like many sportsmen, he has the vague intention of one day gathering the trinkets and medals that he acquired over the years but knows the task will be a long one.
For Kerins, it has been a remarkable winter. It is a minor miracle that he is still lining out at elite level, having been diagnosed with spondylitis while in his hurling prime. The affliction involves constant physiotherapy for his lower back before and after the intense demands of a championship hurling match.
“Just really chronic stiffness,” he says cheerfully. “In general lifestyle, you are fine but the days after big games, you feel it. There was never any real fear of retirement but it takes more work. It hits the lower back, goes into your hips. I take injections for it, which help and the physiotherapist at the club is brilliant. And Michael Donoghue (the Clarinbridge manager) has been very good in terms of allowing me to hold back from some of the tougher stuff in training. I suppose a big difference between club and county level is that in the club, if you don’t perform in one game, you won’t be dropped. You can set yourself up for the important games.”
If that was his approach, it worked. Kerins has been in luminous form through Clarinbridge’s mid-winter All-Ireland run. In November, he scored 1-9 of his team’s 2-11 haul in a thrilling drawn county final against Loughrea. The replay, in Athenry in front of a crowd of 10,000, went to extra time and Kerins fired 0-8, including a majestic point early in extra time.
The extraordinary semi-final against De La Salle, which Clarinbridge seemed to win, lose and then win again, saw him hit 2-5. And on St Patrick’s Day, he finished with 1-7. It was a prolific run and Kerins feels it was a form of atonement for the miserable day Clarinbridge endured on their only other All-Ireland final appearance in 2002.
“Because we had a slow start against De La Salle, there was no danger of panicking. But being honest, for a split second the 2002 final, when we did not perform, flashed through my mind. But I knew once we got one or two scores and started to get into the match – it was similar to De La Salle, who tore into us as well – that we would be okay. So we had gone through it in the semi-final and that stood to us.
“O’Loughlin Gaels never got a goal so we picked off points. They dropped very deep and Mark Bergin, their centre-forward was pulling the strings and they were able to implement their game instead of us. But by half-time we were in a good place. Still, it was hard to see us winning it as comfortably as we did in the end.”
This week, Kerins confesses that the adventure has left him “knackered.” He lives just outside the village and the Norman tower on the outskirts of the town is decorated with a huge vertical sign that reads “Up the ‘Bridge” and all of the houses on the narrow road leading to his house are decorated in maroon and white bunting and flags. Kerins has been hurling for the club for over 15 years but even he was taken aback by the general jubilation that greeted the team’s win. He had suggested meeting in Paddy Burke’s pub but checked himself, pointing out that the interview mightn’t be done at all.
The Clarinbridge hurling story is proof that a club can create its own legacy in a relatively short period of time. As Kerins points out, his club hurling career has been defined by the domination of three superb county club teams: Sarsfields, Athenry and Portumna.
“When one broke up, the other came along. So for us to sneak two county titles and an All-Ireland in between is not bad going.”
He was one of the gang of youngsters who delivered on prolific underage seasons, when they won all competitions before appearing in the 1997 senior county final against an imperious Sarsfields team. The game was played in December in Athenry.
“The pitch was heavy and we had got that far through ground hurling. We were too light and young for anything else. And that Sarsfields team was as good as you would come across.”
They lost but their very appearance was the fruition of the years of coaching implemented by Michael Browne, a local national schoolteacher, Stephen Coen and Monty Kerins, the Kerins’ boys father who had hurled with Ardrahan when they were in their pomp in the 1970s.
“That is the thing about club hurling. It comes in cycles and the teams rise and fall. The trick for Clarinbridge now is to stay competitive.”
Kerins’ intercounty career was also emblematic of the lurching fortunes that many talented Galway hurlers experience. He appears in the 1996 All-Ireland minor final programme as a substitute goalkeeper but, as it turned out, he was sent on in the closing minutes to score 1-2 and earn a draw against Tipperary.
“I was always younger on Clarinbridge teams than a lot of the guys. I couldn’t run too much – still can’t – so they thought I might be better in goals. I came on with a few minutes to go and got a goal and a point or two. I had started to play outfield with the club and in St Mary’s (secondary school) as well. So they carried me as an option for both. It was an odd one. A pity we didn’t win it but you know; life goes on.”
Galway lost the replay and Kerins would finish runner-up on three U-21 teams, in marked contrast to his brother Alan, who was sufficiently talented at football to parachute from hurling country into the Galway senior All-Ireland -winning sides of 1998 and 2001 as well as claiming minor and U-21 hurling medals. Just four years after that minor cameo, Kerins featured regularly in senior league games in 1999 and would have pushed for a championship place had he not ruptured an Achilles tendon. It marked the beginning of a career that never fully bloomed because of injury and the stop-start nature of Galway’s championship seasons.
In 2001, he was a central figure in Galway’s revolt against Kilkenny – a match followed by another runners-up medal with the team’s narrow All-Ireland defeat to Tipperary. Kerins was just 22; it ought to have been the beginning. Instead, he dates the conclusion of his last “significant championship season” to just two years later.
“I had just come back from Australia and Tipp played Galway. I probably wasn’t in the shape I could have been. I came back in under Ger Loughnane but was injured and the same with John Mc. Really, I haven’t been involved for a full season since about 2004. But that is the way it goes. You get injured and managers have different opinions on players and there are a lot of good players in Galway who deserve a crack. I have no regrets about it.
“Obviously, you might look back and think that if things had gone a bit better, then it might have worked out a bit differently.”
When he was invited on to the senior squad, Joe Cooney – one of his childhood heroes – was still involved. “I consider that an honour. And he was really good to the younger fellas that were coming through then.”
His emergence coincided with a period in Galway home that was defined by an internal anxiety.
The strength of Galway club hurling and the successive underage teams coached by Mattie Murphy seemed to lead to nothing at senior level. The rush to translate the obvious potential into All-Ireland success created an atmosphere of pressure on both management and players. And the weird championship structure that applied to Galway meant that the stock assessment of promising young players could be based on the team’s fortunes in a given year.
“We enjoyed it but I felt there was a small bit of a lack of confidence. Some guys were young and let go again. Maybe they saw it too early. Maybe they needed to be built up physically, have them on the panel a few years until they were mentally and physically ready to go. The chopping and changing can create doubt in players’ heads.
“But Leinster is a huge help because we were always judged on one game. Players can get more game time to show what they can do. That was the system then. If you had one good game, you might get four years out of it. But if not, you might be gone. And there was such a big turnover of players then.”
He has enjoyed watching Galway play and reckons their inclusion to the Leinster championship has been a blessing and that the current management are giving players a chance to feel comfortable within the team.
“You can see the confidence growing. They may not have a great game every week but they have the security of knowing they will be back. If you give intercounty players that, you can see a transformation. I think John McIntyre is doing an excellent job in terms of that. It is so difficult when you have a lot of good young players coming through. Your career is so short, you know? You can go one way or the other.”
But where did Mark Kerins go? Nowhere, as it transpired. This year more than ever it became apparent that Kerins’s career has straddled two distinct generations in Galway hurling. It seems unfathomable that a player who can place himself in the Joe Cooney era of Galway hurling could play in the county championship just gone, featuring a cast of players who are hoping to feature in Galway’s tomorrows.
Only two Clarinbridge men have been involved in Galway’s league campaign but McIntyre – who coached the club in 2002 – has said he will review the panel before the championship. But Kerins shakes his head and smiles at the suggestion there could be a second act to his inter-county life – there is no turning back.
“Ah no. I am going on 33, I’m married and we have a young child. Work is busy and the injury makes it really difficult. Just trying to do the hard training night after night is very difficult but at least you have time to recover. At county level, you need to perform every night at training just to make it.
“I am in a different place now then I was in my twenties. It would be impossible to even consider it. Galway have great players in there now and I think they are going in the right direction. I would love to see them winning it.”
