Ó Sé can't wait for another tilt with Cork
The vagaries of the new look championship format have thrown Kerry and the Cork side who defeated them in the Munster campaign, together again in the unlikely setting of an All-Ireland semi-final at Croke Park on August 25.
Paidi Ó Sé was last night licking his lips in anticipation at another crack at the old enemy.
"Playing them in an All-Ireland semi-final will be a strange situation, but certainly I'm looking forward to it,'' he said from his home in Ventry last evening. And, while circumstances hadn't favoured Kerry going into their Munster semi-final replay in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, he credited Cork with playing very well on the day.
"On the law of averages, I knew Cork were going to put it up to us this year, and they did. They could have beaten us in the fist game in Killarney. Now, we are looking forward to the opportunity of playing them again. This time there will be no excuses.
"It will be a daunting task. It will show how far we have come since, going through the qualifier games and our win over Galway on Sunday,'' he added.
"We will certainly be hoping to give a better account of ourselves this time,'' he promised
But for now, Kerry will enjoy the immediate aftermath of beating not just Galway but the Croker curse that hung over the team since the defeat to Meath, eleven months ago. But nobody is getting carried away.
"There's nothing strange anymore, the way games have gone now you could have any kind of combination, but it's good for the fans that you have that now. We did alright, but the lads who came in did well, Aodhan MacGearailt with his goal, Tom Sullivan contributed. But it's Croke Park, we're not getting carried away with this, we were in the same position last year, beat Dublin by a couple of points, then we saw what happened against Meath," team captain Darragh O'Sé for whom the term work horse seems to have been re invented said yesterday.
Along side him team mate at club and county level Dara O'Cinneide, wears a smile, back with a bang, an old man amongst the likes of Cooper and company. Even before the draw was finalised he had been gearing himself up for a meeting with Larry Tompkins, Cork and all that entails."Yeah, it's a distinct possibility, but we have county championship to play now, we'll have to switch off. But it's a good prospect. Cork won't fear us; they got caught by Tipperary the first day, and that was good for them, showed them their weaknesses, and they've appeared to have addressed them.
He too though sounded a note of caution, as that other day in September still lingers painfully.
"We won by eight points today, but look at Meath last year, after they'd beaten us well in the semi-final, and what happened to them. We'll be very cautious now, you have to be. I don't think anyone will be rushing out to put chunks of cash on us yet!
But back to Galway, the All-Ireland champions, the vanquished?
"There's always great rivalry between Galway and Kerry, goes back years and years, and today was no different. We knew we'd have to lift our game for Galway, and we did. We're extremely happy with the result; we felt coming into the game that if we were to beat Galway, this was the time to do the job.
"Coming off the three wins we had against, Wicklow, Fermanagh and Kildare, we were getting games, competitive games Galway had five weeks of a lapse since their last game, challenges and so on in between, but it's not the same thing. There was great pace to today's game, and we've played a lot of ball, but we were on a roll, and that stood to us in the end," the Ghaeltacht man said.
Sean O'Sullivan, the goal scorer, had only one thought after he played the game of his life, as he sat in the Croke Park dressing room.
"Yeah, everybody in the dressing-room wants to take on Cork again, there are still a few things there, but we can only play who comes through we'll wait and see."
It looks like his dream week for both Cork and Kerry just got a whole lot better.
