Niall Cahalane: Legendary hardman put in the hard yards for Cork’s benefit

A Mickey Mouse final...

The words had cut Cork to the marrow. The newly crowned Sam Maguire holders of 1989 were fuming — nothing quite riles a gladiator than questioning his manhood.

The fact that slight was delivered by Kerry’s legendary leader, Mick O’Dwyer, almost sparked an all-out war. Whether the Waterville maestro actually delivered such withering rhetoric was a matter for another day.

Cork manager Billy Morgan had the bones of his 1990 All-Ireland final team-talk sorted.

The 1990 version of the Rebels was a team that was firmly on a war footing. It was time to settle some old scores for a team of angry young men, and none played angrier than Castlehaven’s, Niall Cahalane.

Cahalane and the word soft were uneasy bedfellows. Since captaining the Cork U21 side to All-Ireland glory, the ‘Rock of Catlehaven,’ had added a layer of granite to the belly of the Cork inter-county team.

The Rebel supporters slept a little more easily in their beds the night before the 1990 All-Ireland final against Meath, while many would rightfully consider sleeping with both eyes open a necessity, when locking horns with the Royals, Cahalane’s presence was of the fully comprehensive insurance variety.

Whatever cropped up during the course of the 70-odd minutes, Niall Cahalane had it covered!

TURBO

Cahalane was a man who fed off criticism like a frenzied piranha fish. Slight and insults were the petrol of the unleaded variety — they turbo-charged his octane levels!

Kerry legend Pat Spillane is a man with a penchant for getting under even the toughest of skins and Cahalane recalls his first close encounter against the flying Templenoe icon — with little fondness.

“I liked going up against good players. I remember the first time I marked Pat Spillane, I was about 20 and he got about 2-3 and afterwards, I was shaking his hand — a bit in awe — and he said, ‘you’ve an awful lot to learn, ladeen!’

To this day, if I was asked for one thing which helped me to drive on to a higher level, it was probably that comment.”

Despite the perception that he thrived on fire and fury, he was also a shrewd operator — one who did his homework thoroughly on future opponents, as he revealed in The Cork Examiner.

“With Colm O’Rourke, I knew he’d beat me to a few balls, he was big for a corner-forward and a good fielder but he was predominantly left-legged so it was a case of turning him back on to the right.

SACRIFICE

“It never bothered me whether I was full-back, corner-back, wing-back, I just wanted to be on the team. Invariably, I’d have been a man-marker and, if I came off the pitch without having touched the ball and my opponent hadn’t scored, you’d consider that a good return.

“That’s probably how I became a bit of a journeyman in the back line, I played in all the positions. It didn’t bother me sacrificing my game to mark a danger man.”

Great battles nearly always depend on even greater sacrifices, and going to the well against Meath was likely going to require the whole nine yards. The Royals took particular delight in raining on the Rebel parades. Cork had succumbed to Meath in the 1987 and 1988 (after a replay) All-Ireland finals, and Meath even had the temerity to twist the knife some more in an ill-tempered 1990 League semi-final.

Cork manager Billy Morgan was reported to have fallen to his knees in the dressing room, raised his hands to whatever sporting deities were on duty, and prayed that Meath would make it through to the All-Ireland final.
Morgan was convinced Cork would uphold their end of the deal, and the stage was set for a heavyweight contest for the ages.

When the sides had last met in the 1988 final replay Meath had won out in the physical stakes, thanks in main part to Cork supremo Billy Morgan.

He had ordered his charges to avoid off-the-ball confrontation and focus on playing the ball. It proved to be a fatal mistake, against an opponent that was ready to punish even the slightest hint of weakness.

“It was the biggest mistake of my footballing life,” said Morgan.

Meath roughed us up afterwards and the boys didn’t respond in kind because of my instructions. It was like giving them guns without ammunition.”

When the two by now bitter rivals eventually collided in 1990, Cork sustained a near catastrophic blow, when they were reduced to 14 men. Taking the exact opposite route of their previous meeting, Colm O’Neill lashed out at Mick Lyons of Meath, a policy which, in general, most players avoided.

O’Neill was handed his P45 for the indiscretion, and the game slowly descended into an arm wrestle, with the Rebels grinding out a two-point victory.

With Cork’s manhood restored, Niall Cahalane had no intention of easing up.

Not many players manage to play at senior level aged 40, but Niall was always going to be involved for the long haul, as evidenced by his almost 50-year association with the Castlehaven club.

Revered in the Rebel County, he never saw himself in the same exalted light as others.

“The way you might put it is that, back then, a lot of corner-backs were f***ing plugs like myself, a bit of brute strength.”

The kind of strength that generations of Cork football teams … leaned heavily upon.