Good teams win one All-Ireland, great teams win two?
It’s arguable in many ways, as the Galway hurlers of 1980 and Wexford hurlers of 1996, for example, are fondly remembered for their respective achievements despite the fact that their triumphs were isolated.
It’s similar with the footballers of Donegal in 1992 and 2012, Derry in 1993 and Armagh in 2002. Yet, their failure to win more grates to varying degrees.
For all his public utterances about “the process” and “making players the best that they can be”, when Jim Gavin first addressed the Dublin footballers as their manager in late 2012, amassing silverware on a grand scale was right at the top of his agenda.
“Jim came in and said he's not here to win one, but here to win a multiple,” said former Dublin midfielder Denis Bastick last year.
Having won a glorious breakthrough All-Ireland two years ago, the Limerick hurlers have consistently stated how they want to fill their boots rather than revel in the hero status that bridging the gap to 1973 already guarantees.
“In my eyes, if we do want to be a great team, it's to push on and obviously win an All-Ireland or a few more, if you want to be considered great,” said Tom Morrissey ahead of tomorrow’s All-Ireland final.
Captain Declan Hannon agreed that it would be an underachievement for this group of Limerick players if they won just a single All-Ireland.
“I think so,” he said. “Like, you don't get to All-Irelands every single year so, when you do, you have to make hay. Who knows what's going to happen next year or the year after?”
McDonnell: One title was a poor return for that squad
Failing to win a second All-Ireland certainly doesn’t overshadow Steven McDonnell’s Armagh career, but it does mean that it’s not quite as complete as it might have been. Or perhaps should have been.
“Thankfully, I played for Armagh during the most successful period that they’ve ever had,” he says, “but it’s those defeats that, even to this day, you look back with regret
“One All-Ireland probably is a poor return for the amount of provincial titles that we won.”
You could argue that Limerick have been a stronger side all-round in the two years since they won their All-Ireland, but that brings no guarantees of further success, as McDonnell explains.
“I have always said that the 2005 Armagh team was, in my opinion, the best Armagh team ever. I think we had a great balance in terms of the overall squad.
“We went on a 16-game unbeaten run that year. We got beaten in the first round of the National League to Wexford and we went from that game to the All-Ireland semi-final against Tyrone unbeaten until Peter Canavan kicked the ball over the bar.”
Tyrone also beat them narrowly in the 2003 All-Ireland final. They picked up three All-Irelands in that era, leaving no doubt as to their greatness. And yet, a couple of breaks in Armagh’s favour and their respective records might have been flipped.
“I remember both games that we played against Tyrone in ‘03 and ‘05 and there was opportunities missed by myself and if I had done things a wee bit differently I might have rewarded the team overall in a better way but the reality is Tyrone won the All-Irelands because they simply deserved to win those All-Irelands.
“While we probably played the better football in the semi-final in ‘05, they came good in the dying minutes of the game when they had to come good and you have to give them serious credit for that, as we did in the same year in the Ulster final when they should have beaten us.”
McDonnell was famously blocked by Conor Gormley in the dying moments of the 2003 final, but he’s made peace with that now.
“I tip my hat to Conor Gormley, it was a fantastic block. If one of my teammates made a block like that, Enda McNulty or Francie Bellew, you’d be applauding them and the same has to be said for your opponent as well.
“That was an opportunity missed but I missed plenty of opportunities in my career but you have to have the courage to stand up and go for it again and that was something that I never reflected too much on to be honest.
“I think the fact that Diarmaid [Marsden] was wrongly sent off and the manner in which he was sent off would probably grind you a little bit more than me getting blocked.
“Tyrone probably went into that game more relaxed than what we were.
“We probably piled a bit more pressure on ourselves by demanding that we go and achieve two-in-a-row.”
Manager Joe Kernan later said that he would have stepped down afterwards had they won the 2003 final. He stayed a further four seasons, chasing the elusive second.
“I think we all look back with some regret that there wasn’t a second All-Ireland won,” McDonnell admits.
“Some players might even say we should have won three or four but in reality, the more realistic of us would say, ‘We won one and be grateful for it’.
“We were a team at that particular time that we brought Gaelic football to different levels and we have to be credited for that as well.”
Faithful's second win was so satisfying
As the Offaly hurlers drifted in the years after their stunning All-Ireland win in 1994, Brian Whelahan began to reluctantly conclude that they had missed their chance of a second title.
They blew it in the 1995 final against Clare and were swamped by Wexford in the next two seasons.
“I definitely felt coming into ‘98 we had declined as a team,” says Whelahan. “We had a meeting when Babs Keating took over Offaly and the list of goals for the year, and I remember a lot of players had down ‘win an All-Ireland’ but my goal that year was to win a Leinster to get us back, that was where I felt we needed to be.
“Definitely, at the start of ‘98, I wasn’t believing that we would win an All-Ireland. But after our three games with Clare, I knew we weren’t going to be beaten in the final.
“I knew we had got up to the level required and once I knew that the team was at that level I had ultimate belief that we would win that ‘98 final.”
That they did put a completely different shape on the team’s legacy. Had they not added a second All-Ireland, they would likely be recalled now as a bunch of richly talented underage players that was fortunate to snatch an All-Ireland in 1994 and flattered to deceive thereafter.
“When you finish your careers, and everyone’s time comes and goes, you’re really defined by what stamp you’ve left on the game and that nearly is defined by what you’ve won nowadays.
“Looking back from this point of view, that’s why it was so important, and it is so important for us now, that we went and we did that.
“The success of ‘98, there was an awful lot more satisfaction and a realisation of what we had just achieved, I suppose, within the camp and within the team. Not just about what had happened that year but when it was all over that we could actually look back and say, ‘We’ve put two on the map for Offaly and no one can ever take that away from us’.
“The second All-Ireland establishes, I suppose, your county, where it is at and the consistency of your team over a period of time playing at the very highest level and to get that second one, it sort of consolidates who you are and who you were about during your career.
“That second one really defines you.”
Like Whelahan’s Offaly team, Limerick’s talent wouldn’t be flattered by a second title.
“If they hurl at their very, very best I do believe that they will achieve their second All-Ireland.
“But I do believe they will have to be at their best to beat this Waterford team because, the year that is in it, I give them an unbelievable chance.”
As Limerick already learned last year, that second title can be harder earned than the first and, quite often, far more elusive.
