Richie Stakelum reflects on day Dubs skinned the Cats 

By Tom Stakelum

As the Dublin hurlers look to capture a first Leinster senior hurling crown in 11 years, we talk to Richie Stakelum who in 2013 was part of Anthony Daly's Dublin management team that landed a first championship scalp of the Cats in 71 years.

How did you, Anthony Daly and the rest of the management feel after the drawn match, did you feel like it was an opportunity missed, or were you grateful to have another crack at the cats?

Richie Stakelum: Well, we certainly didn’t feel it was an opportunity lost. We knew that we had played really, really well and we were pretty confident that we could defy the odds because the sense was Kilkenny don’t get beaten in replays, so I guess in a way that played into our hands. Generally speaking, we lost our chance, but as far as we (management) and the team were concerned, we didn’t feel that way.

How did you go about preparing the players mentally for the replay, with Brian Cody having never lost one, and getting so close in the first game?

RS: What we did was, we actually confronted that head on. At this stage we had been working closely with Gary Keegan. Gary is very well known for his ability to work closely with high performance teams, as we have seen with his involvement in the Dublin Football and more recently the Irish Rugby team’s set up. Anthony (Daly) and I had worked with Gary on a personal level all that year and we found him to be extremely beneficial, so we very quickly re-engaged with him.”

I remember distinctly a Web-Ex we had with him. Anthony was kicking off saying it was going to be tough and that we may have missed our chance, as Kilkenny don’t do losing replays. Gary’s quick response to this was - that’s a great attitude to have, I hope you don’t bring it to training.

This was a real re-set for us. We learned that you must be really careful about the language that’s used, the way you show up for training and the way you prepare the team. If you talk that trap, you’ll walk them right into that trap.

So, we spent a lot of time, figuring out, how do we best position this for the players? Gary’s answer was – You must get the players to open up, as doubtless, it (Brian Cody’s Kilkenny never having lost a replay) was going through their heads - You must confront the beast.

In order to do this, we met the team over in Round Towers Clondalkin, and orchestrated a session in the dressing room where we started to talk about it. Initially, the answers from the players were along the lines of we’ll give it a go and see. I remember then, I think I threw out the question – Ok, what happens if Kilkenny start off and score two goals, what will happen then?

We actually talked through it and got the players to open up and talk about ‘what if you were confronted with that? We didn’t back down from it, we didn’t ignore it and we actually talked through the ‘what ifs’ and the possibilities.

What we really focussed on was, what we could control, to make sure we got the very best performance out of ourselves. If those things happen, we are going to continue to plough on.

We got our mental prep spot on, thanks to Gary Keegan, who really got the temperature and the tone right. By the time we had finished that session in Round Towers Clondalkin, I think we were really tuned in to get the best performance out of ourselves, and whatever happened after that, to hell with it.

Did you, Daly, and the coaching staff feed into the historic side of things, or did you try stay away from making it an emotional occasion?

RS: We learned a very salutary lesson in 2012 (Kilkenny 2-21 Dublin 0-9). After winning the league title in 2011, we had spent the whole winter talking about getting ourselves ready for the big Leinster Championship match against Kilkenny in Portlaoise, and we made a really fundamental mistake.

It was after that fiasco, we went down to Portlaoise where we got absolutely destroyed, and we (management) had to take an awful lot of blame for that. It was actually after that game, I was put in touch with Gary Keegan through a relation in work, a guy, God Rest His Soul, named Frank Rock, who had worked with Gary Keegan in a business sense.

We spoke to Gary Keegan about how we had prepared the team for that day in 2012, and what we actually did was we constructed and made the Kilkenny beast even bigger by continuously talking about them, them and them… and how they were waiting for us in Portlaoise and how we were going to take down the beast, and we were going to do this and that.

We actually played into complete reverse psychology of talking way too much about Kilkenny. They were a difficult enough proposition, without us talking them up. So, we made a serious mistake by actually over egging how important and how good Kilkenny were, to the point that when the pressure came on, we simply folded.

So, in terms of the mental preparation (for the 2013 replay), we had learned an awful lot from that (2012 game v Kilkenny) and realised, we had to forget talking about Kilkenny because we had no control over that. What we had to try and do was, we had to get ourselves absolutely primed and ready to get the absolute best out of the team on the day.

Do you see any similarities between the Dublin team of 2013 and today’s team?

RS: What I do see is the confidence of the team is growing with every match. There is a great togetherness within the team, and in a similar fashion to our team, Dublin hurling isn’t exactly the most important team in the Dublin GAA scene, it’s mainly about football, and more luck to them. But what you do see is a really close bond within the team and a calm, deep inner sense of belief that what they’re doing is working.

An awful lot of credit to Mícheal Donoghue, who has now created a team that play very much to their strengths. They’re different to our team, okay the game has completely changed, so Dublin now have a team that’s developed on speed and touch. It’s tremendous to see the quality of the hurling and the quality of the scores they are taking.

I think the goal of the season so far, was the goal that Conor Burke scored in Parnell Park against Kilkenny. Dublin have their own style and it’s causing trouble.

Right now, Dublin have a style of play and they’re sticking to their guns. This was really evident in the first half in Salthill against Galway where they never panicked. A remarkable fact of that match is Dublin scored 2-11 into the wind, Galway scored 1-5. There’s a team that’s very comfortable playing a game that suits them.

A word on Danny Sutcliffe, the only member of the current Dublin panel who played that day in 2013. On his day, is he as good as any forward in the game?

RS: Danny Sutcliffe has been as good as any forward in the game in this generation. Supreme players all have one great common trait, and that’s great self-confidence, and Danny Sutcliffe has never been short of self-confidence. That’s been Danny’s hallmark all his career.

He’s the senior member of the team and has provided phenomenal service to Dublin hurling. What’s set Danny apart is the bigger the day the better he plays.

When the need got greatest in Salthill, there was a bit of a wobble after Galway got their goal, a long Galway free cam down into the square, and who caught the ball? Danny Sutcliffe. A big man for the big day.

What is your fondest memory of that day in 2013, when you beat Kilkenny, to ensure a first championship triumph over the Cats for Dublin hurling in 71 years?

RS: Danny Sutcliffe’s goal, because most people that day, including Mr. Daly, would have said ‘Over the bar Danny!,’ but Danny didn’t see anything else other than an opportunity to land a killer blow, to do the unexpected.

He was crystal clear in his mind what he was going to do. He cut in from the stand side and a low driven ball across the goalie into the far corner. A brilliant goal. That to me was the moment when we realised, we’re not just here to be also-rans or gallant losers, we’re here to win.