Trust Issues

How do we go back? How do we go back to the way it used to be, to a world that has been irrevocably altered? Acts of perceived betrayal cut deep, deeper still when it unfolds in plain sight. The whole world saw what happened, and through hurling’s valley of squinting windows, they laughed and whispered, indulged heartily in salacious rumours and generally revelled in the sordid spectacle of the whole thing. And all the while, what can we do other than retreat and weigh the “what ifs” against the harsh certainty of what was, slink into the hollow winter and flagellate ourselves in the regret, the anger and some sense of unrequited love. So how do we go back? We go back, of course, because it’s all we know. Because even now, the lure of a different ending far outweighs the fear of reliving it over again.

It all feels a bit off now though. How could it not? The path may remain the same but it’ll be navigated warily, with a more laboured step, burdened by the weight of everything we now know. They promised to change, and maybe they have. For a while there, we slipped back into the comfort of it, playing happy families again with spring in the air. All daffodils and daisy chains. But the last outing offered a gentle reminder that all is not rosy in the garden. It might be nothing. We may be over-reacting. Even so, we saw what we saw, those little hints and wayward glances that shattered the illusion and brought it all rushing back. That dark day in July. There’s only one version of this story that ends happily. Anything else leads back to heartbreak. So here we are then, on the cusp of another summer of love, a rush of weeks that should lift the soul with anticipation and excitement. But beneath it all, doubt lingers. We’re left wondering. Everyone is wondering. Can these guys really be trusted?

Now then, how’s that for a championship preview. I suppose, at this time of year, in these purgatorial days and weeks before it truly begins, the churn of a restless and tortured mind is bound to outweigh anything that unfolds out on the pitch. You know, the actual hurling. Everything that has come before exists in a kind of limbo, its meaning only becoming clear with hindsight. What feels pressing now may prove irrelevant soon enough. The scamper for tickets coupled with the meeting of two heavyweights on Easter Sunday lent an air of importance that, in truth, it didn’t really deserve. “We got exactly what we wanted out of the league,” remarked an unperturbed Ben O’Connor afterwards. And he’s far from alone in that view. A six-point defeat can look very different depending on one’s perspective. Tipperary showed in last year’s decider that a heavy loss isn’t necessarily fatal, and as we proved ourselves in last year’s Munster Championship, an awful lot can change in the space of three weeks.

The league has become something of hurling’s Rorschach Test, open to whatever interpretation you choose to impose on it. And so, if we’re to really study the black inkblots of that league final defeat, there’s ample positives to be drawn if you’re that way inclined. By all means, call it smoke and mirrors, dress it up as cloak and daggers, and follow every nod and wink to build a case that Cork were keeping something in reserve. Sure if Ben wasn’t happy, we’d know that Ben wasn’t happy. That man’s far too blunt to ever try to put lipstick on a pig. For the sake of a quiet night’s sleep over the weekend, we might even convince ourselves that poor Seán O’Donoghue was left out there as a lamb to the slaughter, part of some grand plan to keep the blueprint for stopping Gillane under wraps. Will we put someone or something in front of him down the Páirc in a fortnight’s time? Christ, the way he’s going, not even James Geoghegan and his cabal of agricultural activists stretched across the 45 could put a stop to his gallop.  

Then there’s the other way of looking at it. The one that points to twelve national finals since 2005 and just the one claimed. The one that lets the doubts creep back in, those old flaws that haven’t gone away, and the new ones that keep surfacing, whack-a-mole style, just as we thought something else had been remedied. Questions over Barrett’s form, Fitz’s best position, the balance at midfield, the reshuffling of Joyce and Alan Connolly’s seeming insistence on providing dressing room wallpaper for the rest of the country. And layered over it all is that uncomfortable truth; it’s no longer just about beating the rest of the field. This year, Cork will also have to beat Cork and the unvanquished demons that linger just beneath the surface. So let there be nobody tell you any differently, we know absolutely nothing yet. About Cork, or indeed the rest of the pack.

What we can say with definitive certainty is this; the age of innocence is well and truly over now. And you can keep your romanticised, Pinterest-ready shite about journeys and lessons and everything else that is meant to soften the blow of falling short. Destination is the be all and end all here. Put me under if you must and wake me from my slumber in fifteen weeks time, just as Marty is chattering away to Ben above in the Burlington. Let every game be a pigfest if that’s what it takes. Let them be scraps, bores, monuments to hurling’s worst vices, full of rucks, hand passing and excessive time taken over frees. Let the purists froth at the mouth and combust in vehement outrage at what we’ve reduced our national game to. Let Cú Chulainn weep. Because we’ve had our fill of the other stuff; the thrillers, the epics, the grand narratives. They’ve all ended the same way.

What does it matter in any sense? Maybe Cork will tear through the province, blaze their way into another All Ireland semi-final and set the place alight again. Maybe they’ll eviscerate everyone in their path, lay waste to Tipp and Clare and Galway and put to bed any notions that Limerick are back. They could do all of this. They could go in at half-time on the 19^th of July with their tails up and the watching world penning odes to their grace and beauty. And still, we’d be left with no other option but to sit uneasily in our seats. Wondering. Waiting.

Call it trust issues. Fitting, then, that the road to reconciliation begins in Thurles, against the very foe that caused this fracture in the first place. They have what we want. And the distance between having and wanting, between wanting and actually doing, has rarely felt so vast. If those fractures are ever to mend, the first stitches will be sewn on Sunday.

Up the Rebels