Kennedy hopes for long hot summer for Banner

JOHN KENNEDY remembers telephoning Jack O'Connor to offer his congratulations and best wishes after he was chosen to succeed Páidí Ó Sé as Kerry manager.

Few people doubt that he will be visiting the Kerry dressing room after tomorrow's Bank of Ireland Munster SFC game in Ennis to do the same.

"I have great respect for Jack O'Connor and am good friends with him. But for 70 minutes we will be on opposite sides, doing our best to plot each other's downfall. I am a Kerryman through and through and I had great days with Kerry. But when you get an offer of inter-county football and take it up, there is always the chance you will come up against our own county," he commented.

"Kerry are on a high at the moment after their great victory in the National League final. They are the form team, whereas we are going in off a mixed league campaign when we were disappointed with some results. We have made improvements and training went well, but it's a huge game for us."

In his second year in charge and working with former Clare great Frankie Griffin and former Cork selector Dave Loughman from Youghal Kennedy served as a Kerry minor selector for five years before taking over. While he has coached several Kerry club teams at senior level, this is his first involvement in the inter-county arena and the Clare set-up pleases him. For a start, the footballers "get the same treatment" as the hurlers means a lot. This means sharing facilities in Cusack Park. "Anthony (Daly) and myself had our programme made out and there were no problems," he says.

Without being envious of Limerick and the progress they have made, he stresses the importance of having the right structures in place from under-age level up. Specifically, development squads offer hope for future progress.

"If you are a member of an elite squad, you will improve your standards all the time. Limerick are 'a marker' for any county and they have enjoyed success at U21 level. The footballers here in Clare have always said that they are on a par, but Limerick have gone beyond us now.

"At the same time, it has been proved that there is very little between us. Certainly, there is light at the end of the tunnel, but it takes a lot of hard work and dedication." One way or another Kennedy is hoping for a longer summer's involvement for his team, except that he is realistic in accepting that the best chance of that may be through the qualifier route. "Naturally, we would hope to beat Kerry. We will give it our best shot and see what happens. And if we don't succeed, there is the qualifier system and that has been a great benefit to the weaker counties. If we are involved there, we would hope to do better than we did last year."

Playing at home will, he feels, be a help to his team one obvious reason being that it is where they train. "Certainly, the first ten minutes of the game are going to be crucial. That's the period when players adapt to the challenge facing them and we have a number of young players who will be playing in their first big game. Coming up against Kerry is always a daunting task, so it remains to be seen how these players will react."

While the team managed only two wins from seven outings in the League, Kennedy says that their results did not match their performances. For example, they could have beaten Offaly but for the fact that Ciaran McManus kicked a few frees which proved crucial at the end. And, there was the game with Donegal, when they were seven points up at half-time playing away from home.

"We had played with the wind in the first half and they brought it back to two points before they drew level. Then in injury time they kicked two points to win it.

"All along it was progress. We showed we were improving. When you go up to Ballybofey and take on a team of the calibre of Donegal and come away disappointed that you did not get something out of the game, it says a lot." The real challenge for Clare, he says, is to be able to play at that level on a consistent basis. Short-term, the difficulty is that performances have been "mixed," that often there has been a disappointing return from scoring chances created.

When he took over, he inherited a panel notable for the departure of star players like Martin Daly and Ger Keane, players with real experience. It's hard to replace the like of them, all the more so when the playing base is low. "It means you can't substitute for the class you have lost," he adds.

"We are confidence in our own ability. If we can put in a huge effort for 70 minutes and play to our potential regardless of the result, we will be happy with that. And, if you do that, you could cause a surprise. But you have to put things in perspective."