Is Kerry’s conveyor belt slowing down?
He needn’t have bothered. Sunday was the tamest affair between the teams over the last few years.
Monaghan, under Seamus McEnaney, prided themselves on intensity and workrate, but aside from a sporadic few hefty shoulders by Dessie Mone and Dick Clerkin, this was lacking.
They scored one point in the first half, leaving themselves 11 down at the break and the game was over. Granted, they were without the injured Paul Finlay, Eoin Lennon, Vinny Corey and Darren Hughes (who did come on as second-half sub), and the starting team had a very new look to it with the Freemans, Rory Woods, Ciarán Hanratty and Stephen Gollogly all out.
Despite missing such experienced players, you would expect a team battling relegation to show some hunger. Coming on the back of a comprehensive loss to Down, you would not back them to get the win they need against Mayo to stay in the division and will struggle to overcome Tyrone in the Ulster championship.
Conor McManus is a young forward with potential, but he’s not as good as Tommy Freeman was a few years ago when Monaghan were going well. He picked up a leg injury early on Sunday but stayed on and was easily contained by Marc Ó Sé. If Monaghan had both at their peak, they could be a force.
It is hard to assess Kerry on this performance. Marc Ó Sé was excellent although a bit of height could trouble the Kerry full-back line. Kieran Donaghy played full-forward, but was at midfield for both throw-ins at the start of each half. Occasionally I’d love to see him use his strength and throw the full-back out of his way, head for goal and get more scores.
Paul Galvin looked in good shape, covered a lot of ground, tracked back, scored a point and was very controlled. He looks for Donaghy a lot and plays a better hanging ball than most to the full forward. Declan O’Sullivan also benefited from the game. After been so influential for so long at centre-forward and, from personal experience, to be moved to the wing is a bit of a demotion. He will find it harder to influence games from there.
Darran O’Sullivan is making incisive runs through the middle. But against Monaghan he rarely did and to justify Declan being moved to the wing, Darran needs to be making those runs regularly. Otherwise Declan is a better option and Donncha Walsh can do the hard work on the wing.
Eoin Brosnan at centre-back is interesting. There are different centre-forwards but the difficult opponent is the nifty type who takes you on at pace. Opposition teams will try to get a match-up that doesn’t suit Eoin.
Kerry are obviously looking to find a few new players this league — something they have always been good at. Yesterday’s news on David Moran is a big blow. One of the advantages of Inniskeen as a venue is fans’ closeness to the action. That afforded me the opportunity to see just how big a figure Moran is. At a time when he was beginning to find his feet at inter-county level, losing him is a blow. But the thing that made Kerry so good down the years has been their ability to produce a superstar every year or two.
In 2002, Gooch came along, then Declan O’Sullivan, then Donaghy, then Tommy Walsh and then returned Tadhg Kennelly. The conveyor belt seems to have stalled. Kerry’s share price has dropped a little but in the absence of a truly outstanding team, they remain contenders. They still have the best forward line in the country and will only need to win 40% of midfield possession to win any game.
Down’s fresh legs troubled Kerry last year and fresh legs will trouble any experienced team. Kerry would probably like to avoid the likes of a Donegal down the line who have huge hunger and give you little time on the ball.
