Brothers in Sport (9 page)

‘I made my mind up as soon as Billy was fouled. I thought I didn’t have an option, even though I was being told to go for the point. We were five behind and we weren’t going well. If we were going to get back into the game, we needed something to kick us on. I was getting instructions and I knew what the safe option was. But once I decided to go for goal I was determined not to change my mind. You can’t have any doubts, otherwise you won’t pull it off.

‘Another decision I made quickly was that I would stand over the ball as if I was going to hit it over the bar; you get nearly the same power anyway behind your strike whether you stand over it or you take a run at it. But I knew they wouldn’t expect me to go for goal the way I was standing. It’s just a small thing but it was important for me that day especially. I struck it fairly well. They weren’t really prepared and the ball just snuck through. It all happened so fast I hadn’t time to be worried. It was a gamble on my part and I was lucky it came off. I know I’d have been in some trouble if it didn’t work.

‘It’s hard to know what happened after the goal. They made mistakes and we took our scores. We might still have lost the game but for Pat
O’Connor’s goal soon afterwards. To score 2–5 in the last five minutes of an All-Ireland final was incredible. It was a dream finish and Limerick just couldn’t respond, they didn’t have the time.’

For Joe it wasn’t just the circumstances of the victory or the family contribution that stood out for him. ‘Offaly had fallen out of the limelight a little by that time. It had been nine years since the last senior title and we had always wanted a third All-Ireland. The third one put us on a different level in the game. It stamped our place in hurling and I think that was important for the supporters and the county, as well as for the players.’

The celebrations in their home parish lasted for months. The sweet taste of All-Ireland glory had barely worn off when the 1994 All Star selection was announced. There was huge controversy nationally, and in Offaly, that Brian
Whelahan had failed to earn a selection, as he should have been an automatic choice. In Seir Kieran there were three reasons for immense satisfaction. Kevin
Kinahan and Johnny and Billy Dooley were honoured at full back, right half forward and right full forward, joining Eugene
Coughlan (1984 and 1985) on the All Stars roll of honour.

Joe, Billy and Johnny Dooley scored two goals and eleven points of Offaly’s total in the 1994 All-Ireland final victory against Limerick.
© Ray McManus/SPORTSFILE

Johnny and Billy each picked up a second All Star award in 1995, Joe would join the list in 1998 and Johnny brought the Dooley collection to a total of six in 2000. This reflected Offaly’s central role during a period of extraordinary change, colour and drama in the hurling Championship. Offaly’s sensational triumph of 1994 was the catalyst for a series of events that altered hurling’s landscape for a brief but unforgettable period.

When Offaly retained their Leinster title in 1995 by inflicting an eleven-point defeat on Kilkenny, 2–16 to 2–5, they were installed as hot favourites to go on and win the All-Ireland title again. ‘The quality of hurling played in that game was as good as you could get,’ Joe says. ‘Conditions were bad but the game was played at great speed and there was a lot of skill as well. Looking back now you would have to say that it was one of the highlights of my career with Offaly.’

The All-Ireland final would not fit into such a category. Offaly were expected to win, but the hype surrounding Clare’s first appearance in the final since 1914 overshadowed everything. Johnny believes that the Offaly players may have become a little complacent in the build-up to the game. It was a subconscious thing but it mattered. ‘We beat Kilkenny well in the [Leinster] final and expectations were very high. There was a lot being said about us being favourites and that can get into the minds of the players and they don’t perform the way they would normally.’

Offaly led by two points entering the final five minutes, but a goal by Clare substitute Éamon
Taaffe and points from Anthony
Daly and James
O’Connor, with just a solitary reply from Johnny, snatched the title. ‘Definitely the most disappointing day of my life,’ was Billy’s post-match summing up of the day.

Three years later, in 1998, the two teams would meet again in what turned out to be an epic and controversial series of games during a Championship full of twists and turns that the Dooley brothers agree was probably the best of them all. The GAA had introduced new Championship structures that allowed the beaten provincial finalists in Leinster and Munster re-entry to the competition at a quarter-final stage, through which Offaly became beneficiaries. Injuries, illness, the loss of a manager in the middle of the summer, an unfinished game and the first All-Ireland final involving two teams from the one province contributed to the package.

A broken thumb and a broken cheekbone were just some of the trials faced by Johnny during that eventful season. But Offaly had good reason to be grateful that he was fit for the Leinster semi-final against Wexford, as his late goal rescued Offaly from elimination. Fortunately, that guaranteed them a place in the All-Ireland series because they played poorly in the Leinster final and lost to Kilkenny. The final score read Kilkenny 3–10, Offaly 1–11. D.J.
Carey had scored two goals from frees. Kilkenny had not been particularly impressive in victory, but Offaly had given a lacklustre display. ‘Physically we were in good shape going into that game, but for some reason our heads weren’t right,’ says Johnny. The fun was only just beginning.

Immediately after the game Offaly’s manager, Babs
Keating, was critical of the players when speaking to the media. The headlines the following morning were far from complimentary and the Offaly players were upset with their manager. The row became public. Newspaper headlines exposed the rift between some senior players and the manager. After three days of wrangling,
Keating announced his resignation. It seemed that the Championship would end in ignominy. Offaly had to find a new manager quickly and all the obvious candidates were already in positions. County officials were advised to examine the credentials of Michael Bond, a school teacher in Galway who had not been involved at such a high level before. Bond was actually in the United States on the weekend of the Leinster final and unaware of what had happened in the game. The officials met Bond and were impressed, and he was appointed to take charge of the team for the All-Ireland quarter-final against Antrim. ‘We certainly became focused after that,’ explains Johnny. ‘A bit of stubbornness crept in because we had a point to prove, we needed to show a few people that they were wrong in what they had said about us. It helped us develop an even stronger team spirit.’

They beat Antrim by nine points to qualify for the semi-final in which their opponents would be the defending champions, Clare. Offaly produced what the Clare manager Ger
Loughnane described afterwards as ‘a superb display, absolutely outstanding all the way through’. It took a late James
O’Connor point to force a replay. On Saturday 22 August the two teams engaged in another memorable contest. Clare led by 1–16 to 2–10 when the referee, Jimmy Cooney, blew the final whistle. Players on both sides were surprised and many in the stands began questioning the timing. Almost immediately Cooney – who had won an All-Ireland with Galway in 1980 and was on the team beaten by Offaly in 1981 – realised his mistake, but he was shepherded off the field by officials while irate players tried to intervene. Thousands of Offaly supporters held a protest on the field and an inquiry was announced. A day later, another replay was fixed for Semple Stadium, Thurles.

‘We got three great games against Clare, the sort of games Kilkenny were not getting, and it really set us up for the final,’ recalls Johnny. ‘You could feel the momentum building over those few weeks. There was no way you could get that sort of preparation on the training ground. As well, the supporters were really getting behind us. The protest in Croke Park started something with the supporters. There was something different going on that we hadn’t experienced before. There was a buzz around the place. At our first training session in O’Connor Park after the replay there was a big crowd and they really got behind us.’

In the committee rooms the Offaly officials noticed a change too as they prepared for the third replay. Never before had there been such demand for tickets. Joe remembers the atmosphere. ‘It wasn’t just in the ground, it was on the road to Thurles and in the town itself. I don’t remember an atmosphere as good in all the years I played with Offaly.’ Clearly he was inspired, as he scored five points from play to help Offaly finally squeeze past the champions by 0–16 to 0–13. Facing them in the final was Kilkenny, their conquerors just a few weeks previously.

Johnny lined out at midfield alongside Johnny
Pilkington. Joe and Billy flanked Joe
Errity in the full forward line. It was a hard, fast, entertaining final, far different to their previous meeting in the campaign. The result was different as well: Offaly 2–16, Kilkenny 1–13. The change in fortunes was extraordinary. Offaly had won the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship for the fourth time and Joe Dooley found himself in the unique position of being the only Offaly hurler to win three All-Ireland senior medals.

‘I think what made 1998 more special was that it was a much harder Championship to win,’ is Billy’s view. ‘Also, to win a second medal meant a great deal because it showed that we were a reasonably good team. Any team that wins back to back titles must be a good team, but to come back after four years to win an All-Ireland proved that we were a fairly dedicated bunch of players. We were able to enjoy ourselves but there was a discipline about us as well that made us a hard team to beat in the Championship.’

Johnny wonders if the supporters enjoyed the semi-final victory in Thurles even more than the final itself. ‘So much had happened before that game; losing a manager, the early finish of the game in Croke Park and the fact that we had to go to Munster and beat a Munster team that were the All-Ireland champions. It was an adventure for them.’

The adventure would have one more twist on the day of the final. The charismatic Brian
Whelahan woke up feeling unwell. Johnny explains: ‘The rest of us were unaware that he was sick until we were getting on the bus to go to the game. He had the
’
flu but wanted to try and start and the management decided he would. But it wasn’t going well for him in the backs and he was moved to full forward and went on to score a goal and six points. It was incredible what he did and showed you the hurler he was. We also had great guys to depend on at the back like Martin
Hanamy and Kevin
Kinahan because you would never have known there was a problem.’

While Offaly remained a major force in hurling over the next two Championships and Johnny had the honour of captaining the team to the 2000 All-Ireland final, the players themselves began to see signs of the end coming for that team after the 1998 final. ‘We were beginning to slip,’ admits Johnny. ‘We were getting a few new players coming through but not enough. Every successful team needs at least two new players every year. We did get the likes of Colm Cassidy and Gary
Hanniffy coming through, but to keep everything working you needed people pushing for places and we hadn’t enough of that happening.’

Joe, Billy and Johnny Dooley played together for the final time in Championship hurling in the 1999 All-Ireland semi-final when Offaly lost to Cork. Joe and Johnny were part of the team for the All-Ireland final of 2000 when Offaly again played Kilkenny. Few could have foretold at the time just how dominant that Kilkenny team would become. The Offaly players had an inkling as they lost by 1–14 to 5–15,
Carey scoring 2–4 and a young Henry
Shefflin contributing 1–3. That game marked the end of Joe’s remarkably lengthy spell in the Offaly squad that had begun in the autumn of 1982 and during which he played in thirteen Leinster finals. It had been a magnificent career. Johnny began to suffer from a series of injuries, particularly to his left knee, and in March 2003 decided it was time to stop.

All three immediately immersed themselves in coaching. Johnny had a stint with Kildare and then moved to Westmeath where he guided them to two Christy Ring Cup triumphs and a League Division Two title. Currently he is involved with under-age coaching with Tullamore where his young son Jack is following the family tradition. Billy continued playing senior hurling with Seir Kieran until 2009 and has coached club under-21 teams. Joe has returned to the Offaly camp as team manager and is in the process of re-building a team in which his son, Shane, is an integral part.