Kingdom eyes on the prize

FOUR wins out of four, and one of only two remaining unbeaten teams in the Championship. Happy?

Actually, no. Picking holes in Kerry’s progress to the All-Ireland semi-final might appear churlish, but the analysis is as frank within the squad as outside it. Said captain Dara Ó Cinnéide: “If you wanted to start picking holes in that performance, you could start in the first minute and not finish until the 75th.”

Jack O’Connor is in charge of a county that can’t win even when it wins, but once he had dispensed with the pious platitudes after their 1-15 to 1-8 quarter-final victory, he returned to reality: “it’s a step on the road, that’s all it is. We have our eyes on the big prize and we can play better.

“I wasn’t happy the way we were forcing kicks in the first half, though we gelled a lot better in the second. This time we started well, but it just seems to take us time to get stuck into teams around the middle of the field - and I’m not just talking about the two midfielders, but the whole area.

“Also when we got them in at half-time, we looked at the ball into the forwards and said there was no point in beating high balls into Gooch and Mike Frank.”

Verily, Kerry are caught in a terrible dilemma between upholding a footballing heritage and putting trophies on the sideboard. The problem was articulated in the calm of the dressing room by centre-back Eamonn Fitzmaurice. “Maybe we’re falling short of our potential, but in 2002, on the run to the final against Armagh, we peaked as a football side but it counted for nothing - we had no trophy at the end of the year. This year, everyone has made a concentrated effort to win - even if that means fourteen men behind the ball and one man up front. It mightn’t be the most entertaining football in the world, but we are grinding out results. And this year is all about results. We want to get to the top and whatever it takes, we’ll do.”

The equally articulate Ó Cinnéide, who finished with 1-5 and the game’s decisive goal, would thrive on the fluency of 2002, but enjoys the memory of open spaces through a fast-fading rear view mirror. “The performances of two years ago are gone forever. I don’t think anyone’s going to let you play that type of football anymore and we’re not innocent enough to think otherwise. Winning ugly seems to be the motto now.”

That’s about the size of Saturday. Momentarily, Kerry lapsed into delectable forward patterns, but it’s hard to escape the conclusion that two brushes with a goalpost had more to do with Dublin’s demise than Kerry’s ruthlessness.

Dublin were a point to the good and half-time beckoned when Ciaran Whelan inflicted the most mortal wound on a crossbar since Jack O’Shea bruised the same woodwork in the 1986 All-Ireland final against Tyrone.

Though Kerry enjoyed the slender one-point advantage when Colm Cooper hoisted an effort goalwards in the 46th minute, there was nothing deliberate about the route it took into Ó Cinnéide’s waiting arms. The clinical manner of the finish was starkly at odds with Kerry’s general display to that point. Any honest assessment of Kerry’s worth must strike the last 20 minutes from the record, such was Dublin’s quiet death after Ó Cinnéide’s goal. There were positives in that period, not least the contributions of replacements William Kirby and Liam Hassett, but the Dubs were helpless at that stage. If that is the extent of the talent and the leadership in Dublin football, the recommendations of the Strategic Review Committee as they relate to the capital cannot come soon enough.

“Our first-half performance was poor,” reflected Ó Cinnéide. “There was a lot of unforced errors, and we were guilty of a lot of the things we said we wouldn’t do. Of course it’s worrying when things go haywire and I don’t know will talking (before the semi-final) solve it.

“It reminds me of the Gaeltacht this year when everyone said ‘when are ye going to hit form.’ And we kept winning all the way to the All-Ireland final. Let’s hope we go one better with Kerry.”

Can they? Of course, but while it’s an accepted fact of football life that every side is going to have periods of dominance, it’s Kerry inability to deal with those fallow periods that raises concerns. Minus the leadership of Séamus Moynihan - which they will miss again in the semi-final - the defence was ponderous in the first half, the midfield area second best, with possession lost around the fringes, and the attack crying out for someone to lead it.

Declan O’Sullivan came close, but it reminded one of the second half of the 2002 final defeat to Armagh, when Kerry yearned for a Maurice Fitzgerald to beat back the tide.

If pure football can no longer win an All-Ireland - and Kerry appear to be admitting as much - ruthlessness and consistency over 70 minutes remain two of the necessary ingredients. At the moment, the Munster champions are lacking both.

What they have in abundance is resilience, but that shouldn’t be enough to win an All-Ireland. And it won’t be.