'Bane of Tralee' Kevin McManamon remembers glory days against Kerry

By John Harrington

To what extent will Kevin McManamon be forever much loved in Dublin for how he tormented Kerry football for a sustained period of time?

The fact that a contributor to an online Dublin Gaelic football fanzine has penned a song in his honour entitled, ‘The Bane of Tralee’, gives you some idea.

It’s sung to the same tune as ‘The Rose of Tralee’ and is a paean to McManamon’s iconic goal in the 2011 All-Ireland Final.

McManamon is a handy singer himself and frequently when he gigs a member of the audience will hold their phone in his direction and play a video of that goal.

He also scored the decisive goal of the 2013 All-Ireland semi-final against the Kingdom and was Man of the Match in another classic semi-final in 2016, so Kerry supporters might be inclined to think a couple of more choice words beginning with the letter ‘B’ would be a more suitable description of McManamon than ‘Bane’.

McManamon is still involved in elite sport as a high-performance coach and isn’t the type to bask in the reflected glow of his own back in the day achievements, but on weeks like this with Kerry coming to town for another All-Ireland semi-final joust with the Dubs, he doesn’t mind indulging you.

“You look back at the memories, like, how blessed were we to have so many of those days?”, he says.

“When I started Kerry were the kingpins and, jeez, if I could only get a game against them on a big day rather than even a win against them, that was my expectation early on. But as the career goes on you can never beat them enough kind of a thing.

“That game (2011 All-Ireland Final) was crazy and I was a boy, you know what I mean? I was a young boy, innocent, not used to these big, big stages and it was probably my first real experience with a full house and the full noise and all that sort of stuff where actually I got meaningful minutes.

“So it was a bit of a blur, but I'd certainly have a bit of a mental screenshot of scoring the goal and watching Cluxton taking the free then right at the end.

“As a kid you imagine yourself scoring goals in All-Ireland finals in front of the Hill so I just feel blessed. It was one of the best days of my career.”

McManamon scored that goal in the 2011 Final after coming on as a substitute and repeated the dose in the 2013 semi-final after an even later introduction five minutes from the end of normal time.

For such heroics he would earn the reputation for being a ‘super-sub’, which probably meant he didn’t start as many big championship matches as he should have commensurate to his ability.

One game he did start though, the 2016 All-Ireland SFC semi-final against Kerry, was arguably his greatest ever day for Dublin.

He decorated an already hugely influential performance with two massive plays in injury-time as he edged Dublin ahead with an outrageous left-footed point from a tough angle and then put in a massive hit on Kerry’s Peter Crowley that stopped Kerry dead in their tracks as they came looking for a late equaliser.

Dublin went down the field from there and Diarmuid Connolly kicked the insurance point that sealed the victory.

“That was a nice one, yeah,” admits McManamon. “I had a foot injury, that left foot injury that I still have, would you believe, but it came on me that year and I wasn't able to kick in training all year so I was numbing my foot with some sort of deep heat so I could kick in games, but in training I wasn't able to kick off the left foot all summer.

“I remember doing all my mental imagery work and imagining myself kicking points into the Hill so it was nice to get a lefty in the closing moments.

“It was a game I'll always remember because I just felt like all of my strengths were able to come out. I was able to carry ball, I was able to shoot, and create stuff as well.

“I don't like talking about it too much but it was a proud kind of personal memory for me that in the real elite heat of battle I was able to survive and able to play well.”

Former team-mates of McManamon like Ciarán Kilkenny, Cormac Costello, and Davy Byrne who all played in that 2016 All-Ireland semi-final will play in Sunday's semi-final against the same opponents.

Throw Con O’Callaghan, Brian Howard, and Niall Scully into the mix and you're looking a six players with 40 Celtic Crosses between them who will line out for Dublin.

They might be underdogs going into Sunday’s semi-final against reigning champions Kerry, but that sort of experience combined with the youthful exuberance of the young players breaking onto the team could be a very potent cocktail.

“The people I'm really interested in are players like Charlie McMorrow and Eoin Kennedy and Lee Gannon who has come back,” says McManamon.

“I know what I'll get from the likes of Howard, he's the most consistent player nearly in the country in the last number of years.

“So, yeah, they've gotten a sniff and I'm guessing that there was days when they were thinking, geez, maybe this is a development year and let's try and keep good standards and acquit ourselves well in these games.

“But I'm sure there was players like Con going, 'listen, I'm here to win titles'. I think Niall Scully said it after the last game, that he wouldn't be here if I wasn't trying to go and win titles, and I like that.

“He's a guy that's grown into the leadership role this year and he was always a big leader off the field, more quietly, but he's getting the run of Croke and he's another man who's playing to his strengths.

“Excellent kick-passer, excellent at controlling the battle rhythm of the game. Knowing when to go fast, knowing when to go slow and kicking a few scores.

“I think the experienced guys like will relishing it, but I'm more interested in players like McMorrow and Lee Gannon and even the new bench guys that we've been getting, Sean Guiden, and a couple of others to try to impact.

“It's interesting for them, let's see what will become of them over the next week and then the next couple of seasons, you know.”

In 2011, 2013, and 2016 McManamon produced moments that meant Dublin won matches against Kerry they looked like losing for long stretches of them.

Does ‘The Bane of Tralee’ envisage this Dublin team coming out on the right side what seems likely to be another titanic battle with their greatest rivals on Sunday?

“Look, I'm really hoping Dublin go and get the job done but there was just something about the way the resilience of Kerry in that Tyrone game that just impressed me,” he says.

“Tyrone threw everything at them and Kerry looked them in the eye and beat them.

“I'm hoping they'll be shaken at some stage and I'm vouching for Dublin and I hope they get the job done but I just think it's big, big test for them playing this Kerry team.

“But Ger Brennan was right this week when he said all the pressure is on Kerry so we'll have to see how they get on. It's going to be a great game.”