Understanding and adapting: the true reason for Kerry win

IN A truly fascinating essay published last month on the effect of Celtic Tiger affluence, Declan Kiberd, professor of Anglo-Irish literature at UCD, said that “things are often studied only when they start to go wrong. The end of things is the moment we start to understand them: and only when they are understood do we begin to realise what might be lost”.

This time last year, Kerry folk were lamenting the end of a three in a row dream at the hands of Tyrone. It was a detested, indigestible and sickening defeat that stuck in the craw as much as any before but when the smoke cleared there was a realisation that it provided a huge opportunity for rehabilitation and re-growth. The end of the 2008 season was studied like never before in an attempt at understanding the defeat and when some sort of appreciation of the Tyrone template was arrived upon, there was a sense that the team had too much in them to throw away the momentum built up over the previous five years.

Speaking of last year’s final defeat on these pages last Tuesday, Jack O Connor said “despite what people say about our rows or whatever I had with that team, I have a good bond with that team going back over a few years. I felt I could offer something. I felt there was more in them. There was definitely another All-Ireland in that team.”