Always the poor corner forward.
There’s no player more familiar with the curly finger. The defenders could be getting cleaned, the men in midfield mightn’t have got a sniff at it, the bottom line is that the team are struggling.
The game plan isn’t working out and the manager wouldn’t be doing his job if he didn’t change something up. And that’s where the corner forward comes into it and gets taken out of the game.
The worst thing about it all, though, is that numbers 13 and 15 knew it was coming, they were just hoping, desperately praying that it would be the other one and not them to pay for it.
To pay for the midfielders and defenders getting horsed out of it and not giving them a ball to chase down. But those lads don’t pay for it, it’s the men on the top of the left or the top of the right who pay for it.
Bill Sheehan paid for it on Sunday.
Some of them make it to half-time, some of them get hauled off before the break.
Kilkenny corner forward Sheehan didn’t make it to the interval in Parnell Park. With Dublin destroying the men in black and amber all over the field and the Cats’ inside line starved as a result, he didn’t really have much of a chance.
“In the first half, we saw one of the great GAA traditions, one that will never ever leave the GAA. So, Dublin were beating Kilkenny all over the field, dominating the middle third, and then (Corner forward) Bill Sheehan gets taken off,” said Colm Parkinson on Monday’s GAA Hour Hurling Show.
The single worst thing about it all is that he probably saw it coming. Just like every corner forward does. He probably saw Colin Fennelly out warming up early on, he probably saw Brian Cody and Mick Dempsey talking in the corner of his eye.
Ger Aylward was having the same kind of afternoon at 15 but he’s a little bit more established than Sheehan. He lasted longer but not much, called ashore by minute 56.
“Poor Bill Sheehan, being starved of possession, the middle third is where you’re losing the game and then it’s still, ‘Billy, come on, come on,'” added Wooly.
“You were going to have Colin Fennelly on at some stage, it must have been hard actually for Sheehan, seeing Colin Fennelly on the sideline, like ‘one mess up here, and I’m gone.’
And that’s just the glorious hardship of the corner forward. One day, you could be on the end of the inviting balls, the breaks are dropping into your hand, it’s the best place in the world. The next, and you’re the most dispensable man in the world.
“It’s the psychology of it. You’re on the pitch and when your confidence isn’t that high, you know the manager doesn’t fancy you that well, you lose the ball and instead of concentrating on the game, you’re glancing at the sideline to see if anyone is warming up.”
And that’s when you’re not focusing.
“It’s the worst feeling in the world, ever, and then he starts warming up and you’re like ‘I know I’m gone now.'”
“This is all your thinking about. Then you see the selectors talking and you’re looking over, thinking, are they talking about me?”
Corner forwards will always be walking a tight-rope.
“The corner forward always gets the curly finger, doesn’t he?,” said JJ Delaney.
That’s the loneliness of the corner forward. It’ll be interesting to see if Sheehan starts against Offaly this weekend.
You can listen to this chat and much more from Monday’s GAA Hour Show.
