Banter Weight Rowing Champions Are the Heroes Cork Has Been Waiting For

15th Aug 2016

We called for Cork heroes last week and we finally got some. After yet another desperately impotent  intercounty GAA season for the Rebels and an oh- so-close-but-yet-so-far run in Europe by Cork City FC we really needed a proper Cork Olympic hero to worship and last Friday we ended up getting not just one but two.

Back in June when Tipp had hosed both our hurlers and footballers we said, a little sarcastically it has to be said, that despite the whippings The Double was still on. Little did we know. This is definitely the best double since the hurlers and footballers did the unthinkable in 1990.
 

 
If you didn’t have a lump in your throat when you saw the Skibb boys having their silver medals placed around their necks or slow motion shots of their tearful mam in the crowd hugging everyone around her, you are either dead inside or a Dub (and highly likely you are both).

As it happens even the Dubs on the RTE panel had to snivel their way through the post-race analysis – it might have been mayhem in Skibb but there wasn’t a dry eye in Montrose.

One ex-rower called Neville Maxwell was in such a state of emotion after the Cork lads made history that RTE are said to be considering issuing him with a lifejacket for future stints on the channel such was the flow of tears streaming down his face.

Another self-confessed Dubliner who appeared on a later addition of the show admitted he was still “a mess” after the Cork double.

Aside from their incredible achievement on the water the O’Donovan boys have endeared themselves to the nation by tapping into that thing Irish people love from their heroes:
not taking themselves too seriously and calling it like it is.
 

In an era when TV pundits are tasked with dragging out sports shows with often torturous over-analysis of mundane events (think Giles, Brady & Dunphy on a nil-all champions league night trying to pad out twenty minutes until the next ad break with waffle) the O’Donovans’ frank assessment of their mammoth Olympic task as simply “just get from A to B as fast as you can” is refreshingly and fantastically honest - especially coming from 22 and 23 year olds.

Cork people love to hear one of their own cutting through bullshit. We have a long history of it. After the rest of the country went into melodramatic mourning after Thierry Henry’s infamous handball in 2010, Roy Keane’s take on Ireland’s failure to defend the French goal and qualify for the World Cup in South Africa was similarly simple.

“They [Ireland] should have cleared the ball. It’s a simple game. There’s only one ball just go and head it. ”

Our new Olympians’ synopsis of their rowing  strategy follows that trail of no-nonsense bred into successful Corkonians. “Just close your eyes and pull like a dog” will forever follow Paul O’Donovan as the funniest but most applicable piece of bullshit-free advice for any young rower with notions about their sport.

Corkonians like the O’Donovans, Rob Heffernan and Roy Keane might be in the lightweight category but when it comes to interviews they easily make the cut for banter weight!