Tullamore captain back in familiar territory

TULLAMORE captain Declan Hogan must have experienced a sense of deja vu when he spoke last week ahead of Sunday's Senior Football Championship final renewal against Ferbane.

The vastly experienced Tullamore defender is hoping to collect his fourth senior football medal. It is Tullamore's fifth final in a row, their second on the hop against Ferbane and many of the questions he fielded were also familiar ones.

I suppose this is an annual thing for the past few years. You're happy enough so far this year – you've done everything that could have been asked of you?

“Anytime you get to a county final is definitely a good year. Look a good league campaign, a few lads blooded in that and nice to win that again. Nice to get a few wins early on in the championships. A good test there last weekend and we're looking forward to the county final.”

Firstly let's talk about last year's final which was a fairly horrific game of football, fairly low scoring in terrible conditions?

“It kind of went under the radar how bad it was on the day. It was one of the worst games of football, well one of the worst conditions I've ever experienced for sure. It was very blustery, very windy, a lot of mistakes as you can imagine. It was a war of attrition in the end. It became a lot of breaking ball. Any score was gold dust really and we got the goal early on in the first half. That felt like a four or five-pointer as you knew scores were going to be hard to come by. We were delighted to get over the line and it became a dog fight at the end. It was just fantastic to win a big game.”

Ye were the best team by far on the day but almost got caught in the end as they almost got in a goal?

“ Maybe they didn't shoot the lights out but they had plenty of changes and plenty of possession. They won lots of kick outs. Looking back in terms of possession maybe it was 50/50. There were chances for both sides but it was a very difficult day for taking scores. Ultimately we managed to get over the line and look it when the final whistle goes you're obviously elated.”

What did you think of the championship format?

“Look you take every team as they come and the like of Ballycommon – we played them in the first game – it was a really tough game for us out there in Ballycommon. The home and away structure for us really worked. That was a good solid first game for us. We were missing a few but we were put to the pin of our collar there.

“As the year went on it didn't strike me as anything wholly different from the other championships structures that we played. I suppose it was unique. As a player you just look to the next game and focus on getting to the knock-outs.

Would you prefer to see a knock-out element in the group stages?

“Maybe so but to be honest I had no issue with the previous structure where the top team went into the semi and two and three went into the quarters. There is the anomaly that if you lose every game you can still get to the quarter final and maybe that's something that should be looked at.”

Tullamore were the one team that won every game in their group and didn't take their eye off the ball?

“Absolutely. You go out to win every game. We wanted to get first spot in that group and win our quarter final and try our best to get back to a county final.”

Were you surprised at how comprehensive ye won the quarter and semi-finals?

“The game was very much-on at half time against Durrow. It was very much in the balance at that stage but we probably put them away in the second half a bit. Against Edenderry there is no point in saying anything but that the start definitely helped us. We had the breeze in the second half but look we made a good few errors in that second half and it's something that we will be looking at going into this final. Look it there is no game won easily and you have to approach every game with 100 per cent concentration because these games can turn on a whim. If you conceded a point or a goal here or there it can change very quickly.”

If ye do get a lead on a team like ye did last Sunday with Edenderry, Tullamore are very very good at managing the game?

“ It comes from experience. These knock out games especially are very hard to win. We set up to play against opposition. Opposition teams are targeting some of our players and they are trying to get on top of us in certain ways. Look there is always this element of we had a lead but we made a couple of errors against Edenderry that we wouldn't be happy with. But there are always going to be mistakes in games. But there are lessons there for us.

Five finals in a row is serious consistency?

“Anytime you get to a final it's very hard to get there, it's as simple as that. Paul McConway on the Monday after the semi-final was saying that he kinda takes these two weeks leading into the final for granted. We went through a few barren years there. We won in 2013 but from 2014 to 2020 there was a lot of barren years there. Anyone on the older side of the team can vouch for that. It's very very difficult. We lost a few quarters and semi-finals and there was relegation battles. We won't be taking anything for granted.”

I'm not going to start talking about history and 1926 and that but ye haven't managed to retain one?

“We just approach every game on its merits and we're coming up against a good Ferbane team and we just have to approach that like we have approached every single game up to this. That fact in itself proves how hard it is to win a championship. A town the size of Tullamore haven't retained the Dowling Cup . . . it was 1926 since they last did so. To be honest it just proves how difficult it is to win the championships.”

What do you say to critics of modern football and the way Tullamore play?

“It's akin to every club championship played all over the country. I was just reading an article recently by Pat Spillane and he was promoting the Kerry championships. I watch a good bit of football on TG4 and RTE and it's the same everywhere, probably the nature of the modern game. It's probably why there's new rules coming into the game which I would be in favour of.

“There needs to be a freshness in the game and I know there's games coming up where they are trying to test our new rules and it'll be interesting to see how that goes.”

You probably have seen both as the old style was just beginning to go out when you started playing. Has it been hard to adapt to that change?

“Not really. In terms of my development I developed more into a man marker than I was at underage and that favoured me in a way. As my career went on I prefer to tackle from deep which lended itself to the modern game. It can depend on what game you're watching – the All-Ireland final this year was a very lop-sided game of chess. The reality is that when you are playing top level football you have to be able to adapt or you might find yourself chasing shadows very quickly.”

We tend to over-romanticise the past. If you go back to the 1950s and look at those games on YouTube they were nothing spectacular. Everyone thinks their own era was best. But it's not necessarily the case?

“Probably not. The reality is that the game has changed so much over the last two decades, a monumental change. If you were to compare the sixties and the nineties there would have been a massive change in how the game was played but if you compare a game from the nineties now with 2024 it's almost a different sport completely. Maybe that's a lot of influence from foreign sports where a lot of teams are analysing now whereas that wouldn't have been the case in the past. A lot of teams know each other inside out.”

The younger lads coming out of the minor, the Cormac Egan's and the John Furlong's and that generation, they wouldn't play that old game now I'd imagine?

“They would have come up through development squads and they would have been nearly coached and taught a different game than we would.”

Tullamore and Ferbane know each other fairly well at this stage?

“We know each other very well. They looked very well in their semi-final against Shamrocks . . they scored 2-13. They have some fantastic players, especially some very good forwards. I have no doubt they will be looking forward as much to the game as we will.

Tullamore had a good intermediate team this year and they took four or five players off them, players that would make a small difference to the senior team. But senior is everything for Tullamore?

“I was at the intermediate game at the weekend and they were probably unlucky against Raheen. Look senior probably does take precedent but it's not to say in the future that we can't look at winning an intermediate championships. It's a realistic goal for the club – there are some really great players there and they are not too far off making senior players for Tullamore.”