KILLINAN END - Going Back

There seems to be an old adage in boxing that ‘they never come back’. Of course, in the context of that sport it might more accurately read ‘they always come back’ as the road of boxing history is littered with the memory of great champions who could not recognise their sell-by date.

In the wake of Michael Parkinson’s death recently a poignant clip did the rounds of perhaps the last of the several interviews Parkinson did with Muhammad Ali. Parkinson probed Ali about the wisdom of not retiring and the potential health implications for a fighter in obvious physical decline. Ali, as if dodging an opponent in the ring, deflected the questions with customary good humour and speedy clever word combinations. Nonetheless, in the long run many of Parkinson’s jabs left their mark.

Boxing, as long as big purses remain, will always pull them back into the tent, advisedly or not. The commitment versus reward for an inter-county manager is quite another matter. The reappointment of Jim McGuinness as Donegal manager launches one of the more interesting comebacks of a GAA manager. The concept itself is not new and has been played out many times.

Babs Keating and Liam Sheedy in Tipp, Kieran Kingston in Cork, James Horan in Mayo are just some examples. One of the more curious was John O’Mahony in Mayo who was manager of Mayo for the first time back in the 1980s, bringing them to the 1989 All-Ireland Final when their presence in a final for the first time since 1951 was quite the novelty. Obviously the ‘51 benchmark has become entrenched in myth and nostalgia since. Back then casual observers might a have struggled to name the years Seán Flanagan lifted the Sam Maguire. O’Mahony came back to Mayo two decades later with limited success though Mayo was on the brink of a sustained period of success and competitiveness and he many have played some small part in that.

Liam Sheedy and Jack O’Connor are in the illustrious company of Kevin Heffernan in that they went back and won an All-Ireland title. For Sheedy - while winning the All-Ireland was no small task or achievement – you suspect he’d have been haunted forever to not win the MacCarthy Cup in his second attempt. Not going back and resting on his laurels was the easy option. His reputation will stand the measure of time easily. Could there be a third coming at some point?

Jack O’Connor would equally have regarded an All-Ireland title as the basic currency when he embarked on his latest stint with Kerry. That is the nature of the county, and he is a remarkable servant of Kerry having gone back to under-age teams in between. Jack’s club, Dromid Pearses, has had only two Kerry Senior championship players in history – Declan O’Sullivan and Graham O’Sullivan, corner-back on last year’s All-Ireland winning team, so like Liam Sheedy he was coming from a small modest club. Does this create an extra desire to prove yourself?

When you look at O’Connor it is an interesting contrast with Mick O’Dwyer who left the Kerry job at 53-years-old never to come back, while Jack did so at 60 years of age. Perhaps Micko’s nomadic ways did not endear him locally preventing a comeback when Kerry struggled. No doubt, of course, he did help create a succession of potential future leaders in his own ‘Golden Years’ team who took the reins when his possible return would have been an option.

Kevin Heffernan returned to Dublin as manager in the early 1980s and won an All-Ireland in 1983 which from his starting point was not a whole lot more likely than the 1974 triumph. His status in Dublin as brilliant forward, All-Ireland winning captain, and subsequent All-Ireland winning manager of 1974 and ’76 hardly needed gilding in any respect. But there was a ‘colour’ modern feel to the ’83 triumph which connected to a new generation in Dublin, and the semi-final replay win in Páirc Uí Chaoimh remains a particularly fondly recalled occasion in the capital.

It is unlikely that the same expectation might prevail in Donegal as in Dublin or the Kingdom of Football. Yet McGuinness is laying a certain amount on the line in returning to Donegal. Whatever misgivings people might have about the style of play and its influence on Gaelic Football in the following years, most would have to acknowledge that the 2012 Donegal triumph was one of the really great football achievements.

Not only did he bring a team which was struggling badly all the way to All-Ireland day, but few managers can claim to have reimagined how the game could be played. There will be greater teams, teams that last longer, but rarely will there be one as innovative as that Donegal team. You would wonder if we are at the end of innovation. What more new ideas remain untapped? Whatever happens next summer it can be assumed that this man - whose football lineage through Brian McEniff can be traced all the way back to Donegal’s first Ulster title back in 1972 – will make Donegal a formidable opponent once more.