Is it possible the summer will see Kelly’s reincarnation?
The dull days of early January suddenly became a good deal more interesting.
The swirl and eddy of rumour in the run-up to Christmas hardened into cold fact a couple of days ago with Kelly’s omission from the squad.
There were plenty of suggestions in the southeast that the Passage forward might not figure in the plans of the new Waterford manager and his selectors, but the actuality was prosaic enough.
Kelly met Ryan and his selectors late last year and discussed the player’s future with the county, and his past.
The player had been given a programme to follow on his own but when he wasn’t on the panel called to training for New Year’s Day, then the writing was on the wall.
Ryan confirmed that Kelly was gone from the panel on Tuesday evening. Yesterday morning both men spoke to local radio station WLR: Kelly to say he respected the decision and Ryan to outline his reasons for the decision.
The first comparison that springs to mind is the omission of Seán Óg Ó hAilpin by then-Cork manager Denis Walsh last year, a move which turned the Rebels’ games into a series of referenda on whether the decision was correct when the new season dawned. One of the points made at the time of Walsh’s decision was whether or not Ó hAilpin was worth a place on the panel, and an equivalent question could be put regarding Kelly.
The more recent evidence suggests that the Passage clubman still has something to offer at intercounty level: though he didn’t start the Munster SHC game against Limerick, Kelly’s intervention towards the end of that game was decisive, with a clever crossfield pass to John Mullane to yield the match-winning goal.
When Waterford beat Galway in the qualifiers later in the year the Deise’s early, vital goal came when Shane Walsh doubled on the rebound from Kelly’s close-in free early in the game.
Going back one more year, in the 2010 Munster final Kelly got the goal from play which kickstarted Waterford’s revival against Cork in the drawn game.
As they say in the best – and worst – financial institutions, past performance is no guarantee of future success, and the heroics of yesteryear don’t automatically translate into glory in 2012. It seems harsh to jettison a player with big-game experience, though, not to mention big-game presence.
Waterford are enjoying a renaissance at underage level with some promising youngsters coming through, but the Gentle County’s recent supply of minor hurling attackers seem as yet to lack the physical heft of near contemporaries such as Noel McGrath and Patrick ‘Bonnar’ Maher in Tipperary, for instance. In that context, it seems odd to drop a seasoned player in his late twenties.
For all that it might be no harm to consult the calendar, as we did at the start. It’s the first week of January, hence the delight of harassed GAA writers, keen to find something to write about. It would probably do no harm at all to consider how far away May and June are. There’s a long year ahead yet, time enough for any player to work himself into contention for what tabloid tradition terms a sensational return to action. Could it be that in the week or two before the Munster hurling final we’re reminding ourselves of Michael Ryan’s master-stroke in dropping a certain forward for motivational purposes, just as that player makes his return ahead of the big show in Thurles?
