Any Given Sunday

The Cork Admirals — Leeside’s American Football team — have been in contact about the start of the IAFL 2009 season.

It’s a massive, massive operation keeping a side in operation – preparation began last September. Along with the coaches, 25 of last year’s players return to be joined by the brave 2009 rookies.

If in Cork, get down to Kennedy Park @ 10am on Sundays to get involved. There’s a place for everyone in the choir; that’s the great thing about this particular sport. Visit www.corkadmirals.net for more.

I toggged out last season and gave it a go for a piece I wrote for the Irish Examiner.

At 2pm, in the University of Limerick sports grounds the Cork Admirals – in their first title decider – will face the Limerick Vikings in The Shamrock Bowl XXI, the championship game of the ever-expanding Irish American Football League. But Pádraig Harrington will testify; he didn’t win the British Open in Carnoustie – he won it a long way from the cameras. So too, this modest victory tomorrow won’t be earned on a converted cricket ground – meticulously marked out to NCAA standards – in this league, and in this sport especially it seems, more than any other – it’s all about preparation.

On a Sunday morning, with a bipolar weather forecast – one minute the skies greasing the pitch with spitting ran, the next offering warm, stuffy sunshine which streamed into a regulation but claustrophobic helmet, I joined the Admirals on one of their three ‘rookie’ mornings. I quickly realised it wasn’t going to be cheerleaders, celebratory robot-dances on the end-line after a touchdown and yet more cheerleaders.

The Admirals were founded in 2002, after their predecessors the Lee Valley Steelers folded in the 90s due, principally, to a lack of numbers. American Football demands a large roster of personnel and, therefore, rookies – fresh meat like me – are in constant demand on any given Sunday morning in Cork’s Kennedy Park.

Chris Gaughan, has been involved in the sport on Leeside since the 1980s, he gives me his no 50 jersey and pads me up before thrusting me into the coliseum. “The rookie guys are very important, vital even. We lose 10 or 15 guys a year and we need a big roster to keep competitive. We’re constantly building for the future, we’re in the process of setting up fly football in the college, we want to push it in secondary schools and then maybe primary schools down the line. Personally I’d like to have more teams in Cork too and make it really competitive.”

Alan Lomasney is the side’s head coach, he barks orders and encouragement genially but warns with a menacing grin what to expect when you come to the sideline after messing up a play. He’s the rock. The hulking defensive line with hangovers and sore heads wanting to steamroll you into the damp turf, against the backdrop of an idyllic play-ground setting, are the hard place.

“About 50 or 60% of the lads who come down to Kennedy Park will come back. We’ve two guys on the offence who are on their first season – and they’re excellent. We don’t get a lot of rugby guys for some reason – and when they do I think they come down not realising that this is a completely different game to rugby. I’m not saying rugby isn’t tactical but American Football is unbelievably mental.

“We have classroom sessions during the week to learn plays and examine opposition. But we get lads who play soccer, GAA and rugby as well as lads who never really played any other sport but who enjoy the sort once they get into it.

“The game is very tough; mentally and physically,” he continues, “Games can last up to four hours; if the ball is run down a lot then the clock will run too but if there’s a lot of passes and incomplete passes then the clock will stop and start and we’ve played games in 20 degree heat in all that gear that last, as I said, up to four hours. That’s why we need the fitness and conditioning but lads get tired and mistakes get made.”

To reach this final has taken years of work, preparation and recruitment. The logistics are enormous – from pads to buses to video taping the opposition. The classroom in Douglas Community College, for example, that the team congregated in almost weekly earlier in the season was lost to exams and subsequently the so-called summer. Now players’ partners can expect 30 brutish men shuffling over the threshold every Wednesday to study Lomasney’s digital dossiers. Says Gaughan, the technical manager in Cork Opera House and one of the veterans at 34: “It’s a bit demented alright, we’re so dedicated, there’ll be a few divorces I’d say before the end of this season.

“We train Tuesdays and Thursdays as well as having the video sessions on the Wednesday and then obviously the games are on Sundays. But it’s a great game once you get into it; there’s so much depth. We’re only scratching the surface really.”

Before a few of the Admiral’s chiselled-looking, expert established players put an already wheezing, asthmatic, embarrassed-looking group of new boys through some basic (yet evidently beyond my talents) drills, we’re treated to a speech from defensive coach Trevor O’Connell.

Along with Lomnasey, O’Connell has steered the Admirals to the Shamrock Bowl in their first season in control. He’s gives the impression he’s the bad cop to the head coach’s good, the ying to his yang, the iron first in his velvet glove. He offers a variation on the infamous ‘game of inches speech’ made famous by one AL Pacino in the classic Hollywood depiction of the NFL Any Given Sunday. But we take heed.

Ibrahim Khadra, 32-year-old American is the team’s defensive line-backer after joining the squad last year. After graduating from university – where he played college football to a high level- he took up a job in the Johnson&Johnson plant in Cork.

“I’m from Philadelphia originally and this has been great to get me assimilated to Irish culture. The lads are 90% Irish and it’s been a great experience for me being part of this team. I tell people: I’m living the Irish experience, but playing American football and they laugh. But it’s true.

“I would say the Irish league is at the level of maybe Division 2 football in the States, which is pretty good. Quality high-school sides could maybe compete in Division 3 if they wanted and Division 1 is the likes of Michigan and Notre Dame; teams you’d see on the tv in front of massive crowds, so we’re somewhere in the middle.

“The main difference is the size and speed of the guys. But that’s not to say it’s not tough here. In fact, I think this league is very smash-mouth, tough, a lot of running. And the bruises you’d pick up are something to see.”

As I struggle on the wet surface chasing the airborne oval ball like bambi on ice Lomasney agrees: The hits people take are pretty heavy and some you wouldn’t see on television but our lads have broken a few teams this year. They go out with the attitude if you get in our way fine – but you’re gonna pay.

Says Gaughan: “I’ve been quite lucky. I pulled a ball and socket joint in my leg and that recurred last week and I’ve dislocated a few fingers but I’ve been lucky, it’s very therapeutic, there’s nothing like it. You go there and let go like only you can in American Football, apart from boxing maybe. I’m padded up, the other guy’s padded up and no-one’s going to get hurt when I hit him.

“It’s like a game of chess on the field. I love it. The reaction I get when I tell people what I play it’s like ‘what’ there’s a league in Ireland.”

The trial lasts over two hours. It’s an interesting game that seems initially impenetrable because of the layers of plays and an alien language of codes and jargon but the camaraderie is the same on any team and the work ethic is flavoured with fun.

Afterwards, a testament to how much recruitment and a healthy roster is crucial for success in the IAFL, I’m asked back, but I’ll stick to bossing the five-a-sides on a Thursday.