Kingdom ‘enjoying’ final build-up

TWELVE months ago, he talked about the ‘big imponderable’ for Kerry in advance of their All-Ireland football final meeting and whether their freshness or Tyrone’s battle-hardened build-up would be decisive.

The answer was fairly obvious before the final whistle. Yesterday, manager Jack O’Connor acknowledged that his team’s preparations for Sunday’s decider against Mayo have been ideal by comparison.

In effect, their season only really ‘got going’ about eight weeks ago, he pointed out — the day they played Longford in the qualifier series in Killarney.

In Dublin with Mickey Moran for the now traditional managers’ press conference at the bank’s headquarters in Baggott Street, O’Connor said the difference was like ‘night and day’.

“You couldn’t compare the way we have gone through this year with last year.

“We went full steam ahead right through the championship last year. Beating Cork by 13 points in the All-Ireland semi-final did us no favours.

“We probably played our best football of the year that day.

“If anything we might have peaked a month too early last year,’’ he commented.

Quite obviously, it had been different this year with a poor start to the Munster campaign when the attitude of the players ‘was not what he would have liked.’

Continued O’Connor: “Even the Cork semi-final this year was much harder.

“They were tough and resilient. They gave us a belly-full the three days we played them. We can’t use that as an excuse this year.

“We have had tough matches and the final will be our eighth match.

“Put that with the fact that we went the distance in the League as well and you see we have had a good, tough, long year.’’

The Kerry manager admitted that it was difficult to reconcile their League form (which ended with a comfortable win over Galway in the final) and the way they struggled in their opening championship games.

There was a slight improvement in the Tipperary game, after their opener against Waterford but they were still ‘not firing.’ Cork came down to Killarney ‘meaning business,’ and he accepted that they were better that day again in the replay.

After that, it was a matter of regrouping ‘and trying to find themselves again.’

However, he stressed that winning another Munster title ‘wasn’t going to make their Christmas’ because of what happened in last year’s All-Ireland final.

The move of Kieran Donaghy to full-forward had been on his mind a number of times, he explained, except that he had been reluctant to take him out of midfield (in his first season) where he was doing so well. It was ‘a big decision’ to pick him there against Longford, but in effect they had nothing to lose after going under to Cork. It was a case of ‘necessity being the mother of invention.’

“Kieran is a very enthusiastic fellow and he was willing to give it a try. And I said that if it didn’t work out for him we’d move him back out. He certainly could have felt we were messing him around a bit.’’

But O’Connor insisted that Kerry were ‘no one-man band’ by any stretch of the imagination. Whatever the public might expect of him, all the management wanted him to do was ‘to be honest’ and to fight for hard ball that came his way. But, in adapting to the role so successfully, he had allowed the team to change their style, to give them ‘a shape and a direction’ which he felt they had been lacking.

O’Connor admitted that he was more at ease within himself this time round and ‘enjoying’ the build-up along with the players. “It’s not about gritting your teeth for nine months and hoping you’ll enjoy the final,’’ he commented.

“Everybody wrote us off this year after the replay against Cork, including a lot of our own gang in Kerry. In many ways everything we have done since has been a bonus. We just said we’d go out without any pressure and try and enjoy it — and see where it would take us.

“And it has taken us to an All-Ireland final.’’