Kerry need to suffer more

IF there’s one thing Paul Galvin craves more than anything from tomorrow’s league final against Galway - more than a league medal maybe - it’s a blood and thunder, no-quarter-given dogfight.

Preferably, one where Kerry would have to come from behind to snatch an injury-time winner.

He’s no masochist, but the Finuge man believes Kerry need to suffer far more than they did for all but the final, decisive day of last summer, when Jack O’Connor’s side were dangerously undercooked when they squared up to Tyrone.

Tyrone had to slog through nine championship matches just to book their place in that decider, a veritable death march in comparison with Kerry’s VIP pass through Munster and the All-Ireland series.

“I think it was a factor, that we hadn’t had a real close championship game up to the last minute where we came out of it by a point in the last couple of minutes,” says Galvin when he looks back on the season now. “It was a factor but there were other factors as well.

“You just try and beat who is up against you on the day and Tyrone in the final had too much for us that day. They were very, very good, but it was possibly a factor in our preparation that we had not been really pushed for 70 minutes in a championship game. The Munster final was a close game down in Cork with only a couple of points in it.

“But the year before that we had two really, really tough games against Limerick where they pushed us all the way. Those games really stood to us. We didn’t get that last year and maybe it cost us in the end.”

Even in their absence, Tyrone will cast their significant shadow over the Gaelic Grounds tomorrow, like a heavyweight champion taking his seat at ringside to spy on the progress of two of his main contenders.

Two years ago Kerry and Galway met in a league final of breathtaking beauty but bereft of anything resembling the physical intensity Tyrone and Armagh routinely bring to the table.

Tomorrow’s clash should reflect the lessons learnt by the Connacht and Munster champions since that day. Both Billy Morgan and John Morrison have criticised their near neighbours for what they regard as their overtly confrontational approaches this year.

Such remarks would no doubt be music to the ears of Mickey Harte and Joe Kernan had they been pointed in their direction, and RTE analyst Joe Brolly would say that it backs up his theory that the only way to defeat the likes of Tyrone and Armagh is to join them. Galvin admits that maybe their upbringing in the north has “given them a little hardness that we mightn’t have down south,” but he doesn’t agree that Kerry need to swallow the ‘Ulster manual’ en bloc in order to defeat their nemeses.

“Not at all. Somebody is going to beat them and I just hope it’s us. They’ll be beaten some day. Yeah, they have a system in place but we have ours as well. The challenge is just there for us to try and get the better of them. We have our own style and I think we’re as tough as you’ll meet anyway.

“Maybe it just comes down to a little bit of luck on the day. If you look at the final last year, I still say that there was nothing in that game, a few breaks of a ball were the difference in the end.”

Whatever the outcome tomorrow, the league has already served Kerry well. Last year they played well and failed to qualify from their group. This year they have stuttered but they’ve still made the final.

Their resilience, hunger and mental toughness have all been tested, particularly in the games against Dublin in Fitzgerald Stadium and away to Monaghan where a late and controversial Colm Cooper point secured the spoils but as ever, it was in their tussles with Tyrone where they learnt the most about themselves.

“I remember the game in Killarney last year and we beat them well,” says Galvin. “I remember when that final whistle went, thinking that maybe we were going to be meeting these guys later in the year. Maybe that put them on alert and they learnt a lot that day.

“They were probably taken aback by how well we played that day. We were very physical with them. They’re smart guys and they learned from that defeat. They beat us in Omagh this year and hopefully we’ll learn from that. We’ll try and take some positives from it, and there were plenty of positives from it.”

The irony with Kerry is that their biggest positive is also being held aloft as their most glaring weakness. Colm Cooper has continued to dazzle this year but the suspicion lingers that Kerry don’t have enough lieutenants capable of supporting him on the scoreboard when push comes to shove.

The return of Galvin, who consistently contributes scores in pairs and triples, will help. He himself points out that Kerry have begun to spread the burden of scoring a tad more evenly in recent weeks although he admits that they “might be left scratching their heads a bit” if anything were to happen to Cooper.

Galway, with their arsenal of coring forwards, are not so dependant on one man to lead their line and for that reason alone Peter Ford’s team will serve as the perfect barometer for where Kerry currently stand on the threshold of what is another defining season for them.

“Galway are up there, especially with Donnellan back. He’s a fantastic player. They’re definitely going to be there or thereabouts. Michael Meehan is going well for them, Padraic Joyce is a fantastic footballer. They’re very strong up front.”