‘Everyone is acting as if we lost, it’s not all doom and gloom’

THE silence pervading the Kerry dressing-room is almost eerie.

This isn’t the mood of a side heading into the All-Ireland semi-final. The glum faces and creased brows. Should there not be some hollering and a few smiles? Apparently not.

“If we play like that against any of the teams left in the championship, we will get annihilated,” is Paídí Ó Sé’s stark assessment. “We started well in the first half, but I felt all through the game, our defence was very porous.”

In the Kingdom, they see Eoin Mulligan and Peter Canavan looming for their leaking defence, and they are fretting. There were plus points in the performance. Darragh Ó Sé emerged unscathed; they notched up 22 scores, but those three Roscommon goals have alarm bells ringing. “Even at half-time, I was concerned,” says Ó Sé. “Roscommon didn’t avail of the chances presented them in the first half. If they did, it would have been a different story. There were some good aspects to our play. Our forwards, with the possession they got, kicked good scores and I felt we won the battle against a strong, physical Roscommon midfield, but we leaked goals. Normally, our defence is quite good but we did concede three goals. We have three weeks to get our heads around the semi-final.”

Of course, after conceding those goals, Kerry’s sharpshooters did loft the ball over the bar. So the damage was temporary. “The manner in which we replied is a good sign, but we are still disappointed with the way we defended.” But there were positives, namely the manager’s nephew, Darragh. In the first half, he ran the show. Towards the end of the second half, he ran out of steam, but his uncle couldn’t risk taking him off with the tattered look of his defence.

“If things had been going well towards the end we would have replaced Darragh, but you need a player of his calibre when you are only five points ahead with five minutes left. I wasn’t going to take the chance of taking Darragh off,” said Ó Sé.

Declan O’Keeffe emerges from the dressing-room, his pride a little bruised from the concession of three goals and ponders what he calls a poor performance. “It was a poor performance, but we are glad to be in the All-Ireland semi-final.

“But we are worried at all the goal chances Roscommon created. Maybe because we were so far ahead at half-time, the rigor mortis set in, as it always seems to do with this team. It is a pattern that develops with this team. Last year, when we played Galway here, they had four or five goal chances as well.”

Is he worried about the havoc Mulligan would wreak? “Well, I didn’t see the Tyrone game but I believe they were devastating,” he said. “We know all about their forwards. And we need to get things right, especially at the back from my point of view, because the way we are playing now is not going to qualify at this level.

“The goals we gave away by sloppy defending. It was just juvenile stuff, people expect a lot better from Kerry and we expect a lot better from ourselves. It’s just not good enough.”

Still, Paídí seems determined to lift this pall that has fallen over his players. Sure, there is scope for improvement, but there are still in the position to improve.

“When all is said and done, we got through and we are in an All-Ireland semi-final,” said the Kerry manager. “Jaysus, there is a rake of teams who would love to be in our position.

“Everyone is acting as if we lost. It’s not all doom and gloom.”