There’s a Munster bent to today’s Hospital, with Gooch’s superstition denial, a happy JBM and Bryan Sheehan talking cobblers.
Superstition not a factor in Gooch jersey switch
The great Stevie Wonder may have given the Kerry team a bit of a team talk, if the latest word out of the Kingdom is to be believed.
The switch of Colm Cooper from his usual number 13 to the number 14 of late hasn’t seen Gooch play in any sort of a different position to his usual role. This has led some sharp-minded folk to suggest that a long-standing superstition might be at the heart of the move.
If you recall last year’s All-Ireland final, there was much talk of the hoodoo of the number 13 being worn by captains on Gaelic football’s biggest day. No player wearing that shirt had led his team to victory and Gooch was the latest to fall victim to the ‘curse’ last year.
This has led some to suggest that Gooch, who remains the Kerry skipper, is now playing in 14 to remove any possibility of the dreaded shirt number ruining another September in Kerry.
But as Stevie once wrote: When you believe in things that you don’t understand, Then you suffer, Superstition ain’t the way.
Gooch seems to agree as he denied there was anything to it in today’s press, using a staggering four negatives in a five-word sentence when asked was there any superstition in the jersey change. “No, no it’s not, no,” he said.
Protesting too much maybe? He also said he would wear 13 if asked to. Let’s see if he does this weekend or, more interestingly, if he dons it in the All Ireland final, if Kerry make it.
Unhappiness makes JBM happy
An unhappy squad can be a good thing if handled correctly, and Cork boss Jimmy Barry Murphy is certainly happy that he is surrounded by unhappy lads at training.
“Without getting into specifics, there are a number of players who are very unhappy not to be playing, I’d say, but that’s a good thing to have. It’s where we wanted to get to, to have real competition for places,” the dual legend says in today’s Irish Examiner.
With Waterford on the horizon, we would love to know who those unhappy Rebel bunnies are.
Bryan Sheehan is talking cobblers
Kerry midfielder, and dead-ball expert, Bryan Sheehan had a problem last night. He needs his boots fixed so he took to Twitter to find out if anyone could help him.
Within a few hours, Sheehan had been hooked up with a good few people who could repair his battered old adidas and as the man himself admitted he didn’t have a boot deal, he probably will have a free pair or two by the end of the week.
It seems Sheehan plays social media as well as he strikes ’45s.
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