HIS FIRST ENCOUNTER with Armagh, Kieran Donaghy carried no direct grudge going in, but he felt the pressure of previous years weighing on his team mates.
The previous year, Kerry had lost the All-Ireland final to Tyrone, the county of his father, Oliver.
Two years before that, Tyrone in the semi-final. A year before that it was Armagh in the final.
In that context, Kerry’s All Ireland in 2004 was labelled the softest of soft. The 2006 team had so much to prove; to the outside world for sure, but to themselves also.
It was Armagh, even more so than Tyrone, who were experts at playing up to the image bestowed upon them. Nobody personified their unyielding and tough exterior as Kieran McGeeney, but Francie Bellew was a close second.
Paired up against Bellew on the edge of the square for the 2006 quarter final in Croke Park, Donaghy takes us inside that tussle in his autobiography, ‘What Do You Think Of That?’
‘Jesus Christ, I’m going to be taken off here,’ he wrote.
‘It’s coming up to half-time and Kerry are losing and I’m losing the battle with Francie… And Paul Hearty, their keeper, is happy to let me know it. He’s constantly shouting out to Francie but I’m the target audience.
‘That’s it, Francie, you have him bate up a fuckin’ stick! Sock it into him!’
Bellew was a clever defender. Not for him the jersey grab, to reveal a stretched material that a referee or an umpire couldn’t ignore. No. Bellew was grabbing Donaghy’s shorts. No give. No outward signs.
Donaghy made to do something about it and registered a complaint with the umpires. They were nonplussed. Hearty was lapping it up, getting inside the head of Kerry’s brand-new attacking sensation who arrived unannounced.
‘Go on Donaghy, you big soft basketball cry baby!’ he laughs.
On and on it goes, until Donaghy created a couple of points for others coming up to half time. Mercifully, he was not taken off. He got to start the second half.
When Sean O’Sullivan shaped to shoot, Donaghy suspected it might drop short and he went into basketball mode. He grabs the shot over Francie. Shows Bellew the endline and checks back, using the left arm to hold him off while he squeezes a shot with his right foot, seeing Hearty come in the corner of his eye, and it’s there. The net is rippling and the crowd erupt and Kerry are motoring, on top of an Ulster side.
It was the goal that would ultimately propel them to another All Ireland.
As he admits, a hundred other Kerry forwards would move on. Jog into space. Think of the next ball. But he instead lurched forward, into Hearty’s face as he gathers himself off the ground and lets him have it.
‘WHO’S CRYING NOW, BABY?’
***
In December 2020, it was revealed that Donaghy had been added to the Armagh backroom team.
For most, they felt it was his introduction to the coaching world. But by then he had already been joint manager of the Tralee IT Sigerson Cup team.
He was also described as a performance coach with the Galway hurlers.
But really, his experience went back almost two decades ago. While at school, he coached the school basketball team. Basketball is a sport that demands on-court coaches, talking team mates through various plays, notionally decided upon by a coach.
On the teams Donaghy played and starred on, he had a role in everything.
In those early national league games of 2021, it was his voice that the press could hear on the Armagh sideline. Without a crowd present at the grounds, he would run up to the back row of seats in the stand and observe from that angle, run all the way down and roar instructions.
Other times, it just couldn’t wait and he would bellow from the back of the stands, creating some awesome acoustics and teaching the assembled media just what instructions players receive.
The link to Armagh came through Kieran McGeeney and their International Rules experience. The surprise was that McGeeney fitted into the group along with others such as Anthony Tohill who approached everything with a deathly seriousness.
Donaghy was never going to join that crew.
What has surprised many though, is that four years on, he is still there, heading into an All Ireland semi final with the man who took a punt on him – Jack O’Connor – back on the Kerry sideline.
It’s 416 kilometres from Tralee to Tassagh, where Donaghy is billeted on his trips to Armagh, staying in an apartment belonging to a friend of McGeeney.
To do all that, it has to be worth it. From a coaching point of view, everything has to be approached with complete honesty.
In an interview with Kieran Shannon of The Irish Examiner early this year, Donaghy was glowing after playing and shining in a game for Garvey’s Tralee Warriors against Neptune.
“You want to be sure the Warriors jersey is in a good place whenever you hand it over, similar to what you tried to do with Kerry, what you’ve tried to do with Stacks.
“Show them the right way and not be afraid to call fellas out and be the cranky old fella at times. Because they need to know sometimes it’s needed. That you can’t be afraid of losing friends,” he said.
“That’s the way I look at it: I’ve enough friends, it’s good teammates I’m looking for. That’s what I want more of. So if I feel you need to be called out, I’ll call you out.
“Doesn’t matter if you’re one of the pros or Irish guys. You can bitch behind my back all you like but if you’re not sprinting back the floor hard enough, or if I’m beating you in a sprint at 40 years of age with a bad knee, then I’m going not to stand for it. But then when you do what we wanted you to do, I’ll be the first guy to come with the praise.”
He talked a lot in that piece about his regret that the likes of himself and Gooch weren’t 100% gym compliant in their careers. That they had no problem staying out on the pitch after a session to work on some moves or kicking drills, but when it came to lifting tin, they were only dong it to keep up appearances.
In Armagh, their dedication to the gym has opened his eyes. And as a result he studies players in a different way. He can see that while he is a Kerry blow-in helping Armagh, an Armagh blow-in to Kerry, in their strength and conditioning coach Jason McGahan, has transformed their physiques.
As the years have rolled on, the men alongside him on the sideline have been added to. Paddy McKeever departed, Ciaran McKeever came in. In time for this season, the former Kilcoo manager and All Ireland winning coach Conleith Gilligan joined up.
And still, Donaghy draws attention. Never will he be under the camera’s glare like this Saturday night in Croke Park. His expressions will be recorded and studied as he faces the green and gold.
One game away from an All Ireland final. For Armagh. It’s a funny life.
