Outcome will depend on lessons learned

BY their own admission, the Kerry footballers have come a long way over the last few weeks.

The failure to beat Cork in two games had cost them their Bank of Ireland Munster title and again questions were being asked about the team and the management.

In different circumstances their season would have been terminated, except for the blessing of the qualifier system introduced for the first time this year. There will be no long wait to try and put things right as happened after the annihilation by Meath almost 12 months ago.

Mike Frank Russell agrees that while it might be strange territory for themselves and Kildare, "it's the only route" available to them. And, they are naturally grateful for that. It may have taken the players some time to overcome the disappointment of their Pairc Ui Chaoimh defeat, but everybody reacted positively. That's why they have advanced to the stage they are, just 70 minutes from an All-Ireland quarter-final appearance.

"Whether it will be Paidi O´ Sé or Mick O'Dwyer will be celebrating in Semple Stadium this evening will depend on which side has learned the most," he says.

"Definitely, a lot of questions have to be asked about both teams.''

In contrast to their two qualifier games against Wicklow and Fermanagh, both won with ease Kerry found it tough going in Munster. But as Russell points out, it's no longer "a two-horse" race as both themselves and Cork found out, against Limerick and Tipperary respectively. "There are no easy games. When we played Limerick their midfielders won a lot of ball. Looking at the Leinster final, Dermot Earley had a great game for Kildare there. It showed that Darragh Ó Sé and Donal Daly will have to be 'on top' of their game.''

Reflecting further on the Munster campaign, Russell feels that in their first game with Cork in Killarney the two teams 'deserved another day' because the weather was so bad. "In the replay they were much better and they deserved to win,'' he adds. "We had to take a back seat and learn from our mistakes.

"Hopefully we have, because if we don't we can hardly hope to come through this game.''

Two nights after losing the replay in Pairc Ui Chaoimh the players had a meeting with the management to review their situation. "We were very 'down' at that stage and it took two or three days to lift ourselves. Thank God the qualifier competition was there because we had a chance to prove ourselves again."

In advance of the Fermanagh game, the expectation was that they represented difficult opposition. In the event, they capitulated at an early stage. "We watched videos of their games in Ulster. We showed them an awful lot of respect,'' says Russell. "But, the two early goals we got probably knocked a lot of the stuffing out of them.''

At a personal level, he would have preferred if they avoided Kildare. "Micko knows our players inside out, but we'll have to forget about that.

"The fact is that among the ten teams that are left there are no easy games.

"There has been a lot of talk about Paidi and Micko, but that's only a side-show. At the end of the day the players have to do the business.''

From his perspective and that of the other forwards, he knows that they can't expect anything easy from the Kildare backs.

"Ken Doyle and Brian Lacey are both very good corner-backs and they have been around for a few years. I would say that their defence is one of the hallmarks of the team.''

Whatever about the motivation of exorcising the bad memory of the Meath annihilation last year, Russell agrees that getting back to Croke Park has been 'the main objective' all year. "OK, we got side-tracked against Cork and things did not work out.

"But we have another chance to try and rectify that!''