Seven years after his last Munster senior bowling title, Martin Coppinger reminded us all of his class with his fifth provincial crown
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WHAT exactly goes through the mind of a bowler at the start of a big score?
Irrespective of experience, standing there, holding the bowl, staring down a winding West Cork roadway with a sop thrown slap bang in the middle and both sides of the road heaving with strained necks of the hundreds in attendance?
All eyes are on you. Your opponent’s too. No one else. One misstep, one slip of your arm and the bowl is heading for a dyke.
What are you thinking and how do you control your nerves with so much on the line, so many followers, supporters and family members desperate for you to win?
Sometimes, surely the pressure gets to you?
Four-time All-Ireland senior road bowling champion and Bantry native Martin Coppinger is a good man to pose these questions to.
‘All I would say, look, I’d just be totally focused on the first shot and there’d be nothing else in my head, it’d be just on that first shot,’ Coppinger explains.
‘I don’t know any other way of looking at it. With me, if it’s on, like it’s on! What is the saying, it is on like Donkey Kong!
‘When I’m there at the top of the road, nothing else matters except the next shot. I just don’t give a damn. That’s it. I just don’t care and nothing else is in my head except throwing that shot.
‘That’s the way I always have tried to be. Certain days, obviously, small things might start getting to you, you have to push back people or whatever. You might not be 100 percent on your game but nothing else matters except hitting that next shot.’
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Coppinger’s rise from junior C, through junior A and onto the senior ranks has been meteoric, to put it mildly.
The Bantry man became All-Ireland junior champion in 2001 before claiming a European junior title 12 months later. Success at senior level began in 2009 with a West Cork title quickly followed by his first All-Ireland senior accolade a year after.
From 2011 to 2013, Coppinger ruled the roads by securing consecutive West Cork, All-Ireland, and European senior titles. A brief hiatus preceded his fourth All-Ireland senior crown in 2017 but that would be his last title until this year.
Having dealt with persistent hip issues that curtailed his bowling over the preceding seven years, Coppinger got off to a flier and bettered a fancied Aidan Murphy on the June bank holiday weekend. He was up and running. Bandon’s Brian Wilmot was defeated in the Munster senior final the following month on the Marsh road. A rejuvenated Coppinger became provincial champion for the fifth time.
Alas, Armagh's Colm Rafferty proved a step too far in August’s All-Ireland senior bowling championship final. The Ulster champion defeated Coppinger by a bowl of odds in Eglish, county Tyrone.
There were mitigating circumstances, including a disappointing European Championships appearance, as 42-year-old Coppinger toiled hard despite mounting injuries.
‘I’m battling a bad injury there with about two years and a hip injury as well,’ the Munster senior bowling champion admits.
‘I’ve tried everything to try and get it right. There’s two tears on my left hip and it’s been very difficult.
‘I went to Germany this year, it was only my second European Championships. I was carrying the injury, but I got a lot of physical therapy there and strength and conditioning with another fella.
‘My son Tommy’s Communion was on the Saturday I was out there so I was sacrificing a lot and in the end I wasn’t ready. I was nowhere near ready. I was injured after the first day on the grass game and finished tenth.
‘I didn’t produce anything like I could and the next two days were just a disaster. I was dejected. I started to feel bad about missing my young fella’s Communion and then to go out and not produce, well, it was very hard to take.’
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Reigning Munster champion Martin Coppinger.
Clearly, Coppinger’s family means the world to him. His wife Kim and sons Tommy (9) and Cal (3) are his first priority. An opportunity to add his eldest son to his support team proved a wise choice.
‘Tommy’s Communion was on the Saturday I was in Germany,’ Coppinger states.
‘I was injured and asked myself a couple of times, what’s the point in carrying on? When I came back home I was anxious to make it up to him. I said, we’ll have one go off the senior championships and asked if he’d come along with me as my coach. Sure, he was only delighted with that.
‘I knew if I was any bit right I could have a go against Aidan Murphy. Like, I was giving myself a chance. I won and the rest of the year just progressed from there really.
‘Next, I went to Lyre and beat Patrick Flood. I was very comfortable until the injury came on me again towards the end. I held on. In the semi-finals, I was bowling Michael Bohane and through the fourth shot, I pulled my hamstring on my right leg. My two legs were gone and I don’t know how I survived that night. My hamstring was totally gone. The body was gone, but I got away with it.
‘I beat Michael and got fiercely lucky then as there was a month to the final. Not that I looked for the time, it just happened that there was a month between the county final and that semi-final. I actually recovered from the hamstring injury.
‘I bowled the final in Skibbereen against Brian Wilmot. I was very lucky, in a way, there as well. I was kind of getting the roads that suited me. Everything just fell into place.’
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In what has been a glittering career, the veteran bowler remains non-committal on his future prospects.
‘Next year, I don’t know, I’ll be honest,’ Coppinger says.
‘I’ve been working with another osteopath, Luke McGrane, for the last six months and he reckons my hip is the worst he’s ever come across. He can’t understand how you could bowl, not to mind winning titles. I don’t know, it could be all over, to be honest.
‘Obviously you’re not going to keep at this pace because people are putting money on it and stuff like that. If you’re not right, you’re not right, especially the condition I’m in right now, but you know, as I say, anything is still possible!
‘If I could get back any bit right at all, because I still have enough power for it, it’s just the body, you know? Anything is possible but we will just have to wait and see.’
It has been a year of incredible highs, winning back his Munster senior bowling title, and frustrating injury-plagued losses for Coppinger. At 42 years of age, the experienced bowler’s career has won the lot, and then some. Hopefully, we will see Coppinger back on the roads in 2025. If not, what a career and what a way to go out by reclaiming a Munster senior title after a seven-year gap.
