THERE HAD BEEN a few whispers earlier in the day, but the news that Colm Cooper has been dropped for Sunday’s Munster football final still hit like a bombshell when it landed.
It is only the second time that Cooper has been fit to play for Kerry and hasn’t started. The last time came back in the summer of 2009 — but it didn’t last for very long.
After losing out to Cork in the Munster semi-final replay, Kerry found themselves facing into the qualifiers for a second straight year. It took them a while to regroup and hit their stride; after grinding out a four-point win against Longford in Pearse Park, they hosted Sligo in Tralee.
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It was a game that would go down as one of their Great Escapes. Sligo were two points up at the break and, even after Kerry turned it around to lead inside the final 10 minutes, the visitors were still very much in the game.
Had David Kelly converted his penalty at the death, the outcome surely would have been different — but Diarmuid Murphy saved and Kerry survived by the narrowest of margins, 0-14 to 1-10.
That evening, Cooper and Tomás Ó Sé went for a drink. When Jack O’Connor caught wind that they had broken the squad’s alcohol ban, he pulled no punches and left two of his key men on the bench for the following week’s game against Antrim.
Cooper scored 1-7 against Dublin, including a goal after just 38 seconds. Donall Farmer / INPHO
Donall Farmer / INPHO / INPHO
It took just 30 stuttering minutes — 17 of which Kerry spent scoreless — for O’Connor to realise that his biggest asset was sitting behind him on the bench. Cooper came on after half-an-hour, kicked four frees in a five-point win, and then proceeded to eviscerate the Dubs in the quarter-finals a week later — the day of the “startled earwigs.”
“We were told to sit down and take the sanction. We sat down as we were told, but when I was told to go on during the game I tore on and was delighted to do so.”
The rest is history. Kerry went on to win their 36th All-Ireland and Cooper strengthened his legacy as one of the finest, if not the finest, footballer of his generation.
The last time that Colm Cooper was dropped by Kerry, it only lasted half-an-hour
THERE HAD BEEN a few whispers earlier in the day, but the news that Colm Cooper has been dropped for Sunday’s Munster football final still hit like a bombshell when it landed.
It is only the second time that Cooper has been fit to play for Kerry and hasn’t started. The last time came back in the summer of 2009 — but it didn’t last for very long.
After losing out to Cork in the Munster semi-final replay, Kerry found themselves facing into the qualifiers for a second straight year. It took them a while to regroup and hit their stride; after grinding out a four-point win against Longford in Pearse Park, they hosted Sligo in Tralee.
It was a game that would go down as one of their Great Escapes. Sligo were two points up at the break and, even after Kerry turned it around to lead inside the final 10 minutes, the visitors were still very much in the game.
Had David Kelly converted his penalty at the death, the outcome surely would have been different — but Diarmuid Murphy saved and Kerry survived by the narrowest of margins, 0-14 to 1-10.
That evening, Cooper and Tomás Ó Sé went for a drink. When Jack O’Connor caught wind that they had broken the squad’s alcohol ban, he pulled no punches and left two of his key men on the bench for the following week’s game against Antrim.
It took just 30 stuttering minutes — 17 of which Kerry spent scoreless — for O’Connor to realise that his biggest asset was sitting behind him on the bench. Cooper came on after half-an-hour, kicked four frees in a five-point win, and then proceeded to eviscerate the Dubs in the quarter-finals a week later — the day of the “startled earwigs.”
“My biggest disappointment was that I would not be left play for Kerry that day,” he told Radio Kerry’s Eamonn Fitzgerald a few years later.
“We were told to sit down and take the sanction. We sat down as we were told, but when I was told to go on during the game I tore on and was delighted to do so.”
The rest is history. Kerry went on to win their 36th All-Ireland and Cooper strengthened his legacy as one of the finest, if not the finest, footballer of his generation.
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