Getting there together

A FEW years later than they would have hoped for, players from the West Kerry Gaeltacht are about to sample the wonderful experience of club football on the All-Ireland stage.

And so it is too for St Brigid’s, their opponents in the first of the AIB semi-finals in Semple Stadium tomorrow (2pm).

Along the way they have each gained a greater appreciation of what it means to be representing their parish and to be embraced by the community at large.

“The big thing about it is that there are people going to matches who wouldn’t necessarily have a huge interest in football,’’ Dara Ó Cinnéide, agrees.

“But, they feel a kind of a community thing at this stage that they have to support. There’s a ‘fun element’ to it and a lot of them would be going on Sunday for the craic. That’s the difference between this year and other years.’’

That support has been evident in other ways, too, more tangibly in the form of solid cash through fund-raising ventures.

“In fairness, the population in the Gaeltacht have got behind us and they have supported us by putting their hands in their pockets,’’ he explains.

“The response to the venture in Killarney was amazing. It had been promoted very well and the business community got behind us. At the time our stock was high and we had to strike when the iron was hot. But, it was overdue as well and the timing was right to have a night for Paidí Ó Sé, seeing that he had departed the scene in Kerry.”

Late in 2001, after winning their first county title, Gaeltacht met club specialists Nemo Rangers in the Munster championship in Pairc Uí Chaoimh and lost narrowly. Even more disappointing for players and followers was their failure to make it back to the county final the following year.

Ó Cinnéide points to the fact that, apart from Laune Rangers and Dr Crokes, Kerry clubs haven’t had a great record in the provincial championship over the last decade.

Reflecting back on the 2001 campaign, he feels that their lack of experience cost them victory that day in Pairc Uí Chaoimh.

“When we won our first championship we did not realise the level we were at. We lost to Nemo Rangers and we were very disappointed but it gave us huge encouragement to know that we weren’t far off the mark,’’ he added.

“From where we were looking at it, we knew that football in Cork in particular was very strong and that to win a Munster championship you had to beat the Cork champions every year. We were only a point behind them that year. Maybe they had a different drive and a different attitude, but they were a better team in 2003 than in 2001 when we nearly beat them.

“It gave us encouragement to realise that we were not that far off the mark, when they won the All-Ireland with much the same panel of players.

“When we did play them, that realisation came too late, probably half-way through the game!’’

In the 2002 county championship, Gaeltacht were shocked in the semi-final by Kilcummin and accepted that they had let themselves and their followers down. Ó Cinnéide points out that it was a game they could have except that they were unlucky on a few occasions.

“It was a time to take stock. Possibly the attitude wasn’t what it should have been, but there were a lot of heads down after that game. We felt we had lost a lot of the goodwill we had generated the year before in winning.

“The big difference this year was that we had a lot of luck. This year we had Mid-Kerry and Laune Rangers on two occasions. Even to get out of Kerry we had three strokes of luck in different games. Pa Sullivan shot off the post in the last minute of the replayed county final and Dan Doona could have scored in the semi-final. We had that bit of luck which made all the difference.’’

The players have had a run-out in Thurles, and were most impressed.

“From a player’s point of view it’s a lovely pitch,’’ says Ó Cinnéide. “There won’t be any excuses about ground conditions or anything like that. When we were there last Sunday it seemed in perfect order.

“Kerry have always have good experiences in Thurles. We won two All-Ireland Under-21 finals there, in 1995 and 1996, we played Dublin there twice in 2001 and we played Tipperary there in the Munster final of 1998. Bar the drawn game with Dublin they were all ‘good’ experiences for a lot of us.”

A record, all of Kerry hopes will remain intact.