Kieran Daly

Originally published: Town Tattler Vol 1 Issue 5

This month the Tattler caught up with a former Town great who left Portlaoise and Ireland 42 years ago this year. Kieran Daly is a brother of our Vice-Chairperson Catherine Fitzgerald and an uncle of Tommy and Barry. Here Kieran looks back on the glory days. He was part of the team that won the Leinster Club Championship in 1976, with a very special recollection of a famous win in that campaign, against the mighty St Vincent’s of Dublin.

Leaving the town

I left Portlaoise in 1979 to further my nursing career and ended up as a service manager in the NHS in the Liverpool area. I had not intended to remain in the UK but having settled in, I have stayed here ever since and am unlikely to leave now.

In 1979 I continued to play for The Town, and we beat Josephs in the county final. We met Walsh Island in the Leinster Club Final and were essentially beaten by Matt Connor who scored a breath-taking goal which no one would have stopped.

Liverpool

I have always liked living in what is now called the Liverpool City Region. This area includes a number of other boroughs as well as Liverpool and has a population of 1.6 million. Liverpool is a very vibrant city and after suffering an economic downturn in the seventies and eighties bounced back during the Capital of Culture in 2008. It became a destination city and now has a huge hospitality sector.

Work

Apart from a couple of years with the local authority I have spent all my career working in the National Health Service (NHS). It is a remarkable organisation. Essentially healthcare is free at the point of entry for everyone regardless of wealth. Although the UK spends less on health than some European countries it has very good outcomes because there is a high degree of accountability about how money is spent.

The NHS received a big boost in funding in the early 2000s when Tony Blair/Gordon Brown were prime ministers. Although the government gave us plenty of money, we were set targets and were required to produce business plans. This demanded a great degree of change in the way people work and how services were delivered.

My role involved overseeing a lot of this transformation. Some people objected saying they did not become a doctor, nurse or therapist to look at spreadsheets. It was important to listen to people but also point out that this was taxpayers’ money and we had to use it wisely and allow ourselves to be subject to scrutiny.

I retired four years ago and keep busy with doing long distance walks and looking after the grandchildren.

1975 - Breaking through

I played for Portlaoise underage teams from the age of 13 and played my first senior championship match against Stradbally when I was 18 in 1975. There were a number of players from the Leinster club championship winning team of 1971/72 on the team and we were perhaps unlucky to lose, but this was the fourth year in a row that The Town had been beaten in the early rounds of the championship and there was much soul searching afterwards.

The senior team was in a period of transition and nothing stands still. I did not know it at the time, but this was a good life lesson in the management of change in sport and in life generally.

1976 - The Town are back

The following year we started anew. We had eight under 21s on the team, but we also had Mick Mulhall, Sean Mullins, Jim Harding, Eamon Whelan, Mick Dooley and John Joe Ging, Old Timer, who were a bit older and added some ballast to the team.

This formula proved to be the classic mix of youth and experience and we got to the county final against Graiguecullen. There were several highlights along the way. The one that sticks out is John Joe’s goal against St. Josephs in Graiguecullen. John Joe was playing at full forward and received a pass on the edge of the square. He had a tussle with the full back and suddenly John Joe, the full back and the ball were all in the back of the net. The referee gave us the goal. It was a bit of luck but we deserved it.

The final against Graigue was a very tense affair and it was desperately disappointing when Graigue got a goal to draw the game in the last few minutes. However, we learned a lot from this match and played a much faster passing game in the replay.

I remember Mick Dooley and Eamon Whelan being outstanding in midfield and Jim Harding having a fine game at full back. Nobody could knock Jimmy Bergin off the ball at centre back. I think Graigue must have put three different men on him.

Our forwards were very fast and skilful and after this game we began to attract a lot of support from across the county. A number of these supporters were from the Hurling Area.

Emotion

When we won there was an outpouring of emotion. Old men I did not know came to shake our hands in the dressing room. This was a moment in time in the distinguished history of Portlaoise GAA club, but we brought great joy to the people of Portlaoise on that day and that is something that I will always take with me.

Kings of Leinster

Everything we did after the county final was a bonus, but we kept achieving greater things. We were crowned Leinster champions in January 1977 having beaten Cooley Kickhams in the final and ended up losing narrowly to Austin Stacks with all their Kerry greats on board.

We had beaten Castletown of Wexford and a fine Moate team on our way to the Leinster final.

Standout Memory

The game that is seared into my memory however is the Vincents match in November 1976. Vincents were rightly favourites going into the match as we were seen as a young team that would not be able to cope with the Dubliners’ power and experience.

They had a full squad apart from Gay O’Driscoll, the Dublin full back at the time, who was unable to play because of a bereavement. That still meant they had Jimmy Keaveny, Tony Hanahoe, Bobby Doyle, Brian Mullins and several Dublin panellists in their team.

We brought the game to Vincents and were ahead until the final quarter. But, like all good teams, Vincents had begun to assert themselves and using their experience, were cranking up the pressure. They gradually caught up with us, drew level and were looking to win the game.

Despite being expertly pinned down, we were not imploding. The crowd could sense something important was going on and began to stir. Mick Dooley and Eamon Whelan were doing wondrous things at midfield, outplaying Brian Mullins and Fran Ryder. We were holding out defensively, but the pressure was intense.

With not much time left and the scores level we needed a break and then we got one. We managed to get the ball to Liam Scully, who was playing at left half forward. Tom Prendergast was nearby in the centre forward position. Tom had that gift that great players have of being able to think microseconds faster than ordinary mortals.

He saw a space behind the centre back and ran into it. Liam reacted quickly and lobbed a perfect pass into Tom’s hands and suddenly he was away with what seemed like the whole of Vincents after him. No one could catch him. Our other forwards were all making room and pulling their men away. Tom planted the ball over the bar. He was 20 years old. A huge roar went up. It was incredible being there. But the match was not over.

Suddenly, Bobby Doyle, Vincents’ best player, had the ball on our half back line. He had an ungainly style, but it was incredibly difficult to dispossess him. He appeared to waltz past our half backs: George Plunkett, Jimmy Bergin and Noel Scully. Writing this sentence, even forty-four years later, seems strange; nobody but nobody waltzed past these guys.

It was then the turn of Sean Mullins and myself. It was no good, he was just too elusive. Bringing him down would have resulted in a penalty. Doyle now only had Mick Mulhall, our goalkeeper, to beat. He hit the ball hard and low to Mick’s left.

Mick ‘Bonetti’ Mulhall saves the day

But wait, Mick had reacted, almost instantaneously, Peter Bonetti-like, to the shot and had parried it away. Within seconds the match was over. We had won an amazing victory. Cue tumultuous scenes. We didn’t just have supporters from Portlaoise congratulating us but people from all over the county.

The Town in Leinster

Were there any pointers that we would beat Vincents? I think there were a few. Our confidence had increased after the county final and we really applied ourselves to the club championship.

Sometimes Town teams play better and move to a new level in the Leinster championship. We had scored five goals against Castletown of Wexford in an earlier round, and everyone was very sharp. We had a high level of fitness and trained very hard by the standards of the time.

Our forwards could all show up at different times. Being able to keep the scoreboard ticking over is a priceless asset in a team.

Teammates

I remember Bernie Conroy and Billy Bohan getting some crucial scores in different games. Ger Griffin and George Buggie were our forward subs, and they too were generally able to get scores at pressure points in matches.

Colm Bowne was a highly intelligent footballer. We sometimes had a half forward line of Colm, Liam Scully and Tom Prendergast. That is a formidable line-up and would test most half back lines, even those with today’s levels of strength and conditioning.

John Joe used his physical presence well as full backs at that time could be uncompromising and he perhaps did not always get the credit he deserved for this. In the backs, we just kept things very tight and simple and developed a great degree of positional sense between us.

Mick and Atch in midfield were simply great footballers who were both supremely fit and always made the right decisions.

I have not seen Mick Mulhall for some time but when I do, I usually bring up That Save. Mick is very modest about it, but it was astounding.

Two of the team, George Buggie and Sean Mullins, have since died. They are missed greatly. RIP.

The greats

The Kerry and Dublin teams dominated things, but Tom Prendergast was as good as any of them. Matt Connor was a match winner who made everything look easy. Willie Brennan had a skillset that would easily fit in today’s game.

Difficult Opponents

Playing against The Heath was always a challenge but generally a fair one.

Influences

Bill Phelan helped The Town develop the best underage setup in the county. We won several minor and under 21 titles before we made it to the senior team.

I believe that getting to all these finals and winning them helped us develop a winning mentality and prepared us for the rigours of the senior game.