Rebels give Canty room to roam

SUNDAY brings a Munster Old Firm battle with a twist for Graham Canty. The Bantry man has become well-versed on Cork-Kerry football clashes in recent years, with his mission statement at full-back being to tame the man mountain that is Kieran Donaghy.

Yet the latest instalment will see no Donaghy (foot injury) and no Canty in the number 3 jersey due to the return of Michael Shields from his Australian sojourn.

Instead Canty will operate in the heart of the Cork defence at centre-back tasked with stopping the marauding runs of Declan O’Sullivan.

There was a popular school of thought over the past few seasons that the full-back position restricted Canty from expressing his talents and there can be neat parallels drawn with the role Seamus Moynihan was forced into for Kerry at the start of this decade.

Sunday then is a return to a natural home for Canty.

“Certainly it’ll be a different experience for me on Sunday facing Kerry. Michael Shields and Noel O’Donovan have been playing at full-back since the start of the year and they’ve been rock solid. I’m further out the field and it’s enjoyable.

“But it’s going to be a big battle against the Kerry half-forward line. They’ve some great ballplayers and they work very hard without the ball as well.

“Kerry’s middle eight is the springboard for a lot of their attacks. They’ve great experience there and you’ve someone like Tadhg Kennelly coming into it around the middle as well.”

An unhindered preparation path to this game has helped. The persistent difficulty of fixing club games has caused complications in the past for Cork, yet they have travelled smoothly for the last two weeks with no interruptions.

Canty, who faces a crunch club championship tie with Bantry Blues, views it as a blessing.

“It’s great that the fixtures committee were able to accommodate us around the Waterford and Kerry games. That helps the preparations and helps lads to focus solely on the intercounty setup.

“If you’re torn between an important club game, your head is all over the place. You’re trying to get up for that and if you win, you then have to regain your focus for the county team. It’s hard to train for both, so this certainly helps us.”

With that problem sorted, the most vexing issue for Cork to address is to avoid the oscillating that occurred during their performances against Kerry last year. Canty identifies a greater consistency of performance as a necessity for his side this season.

“We’ve been trying to get more consistency into our game, something I felt we lacked a lot last year when we were going five or six points down early on. In championship football trying to dig yourself out of a hole just isn’t possible every day.

“We’ve tried to implement that this year. It has fallen short on a couple of occasions like against Monaghan up in Scotstown but overall you’re just striving for greater consistency. Last year there was a certain element of luck to our comeback in the Munster final against Kerry.”

If last weekend showed the allure of a Cork-Tipperary clash in Thurles is still intact, then Canty feels Cork-Kerry games in Killarney hold a similar mystique.

Cork’s record at the venue over the past few seasons has not been striking and it’s a nagging statistic that Canty wants to tackle head on.

“We haven’t won down there in a while as the stats show. We want to rectify that this weekend. Anytime you play Kerry it’s tough, but particularly down there in Killarney. We’ve done reasonably well against Kerry in the Munster championship over the last few years, without having managed to take it on to the All-Ireland stages. It’s always a 50-50 game and I can’t see that changing this Sunday.

“Both teams are well aware that they’ll be in the qualifiers earlier this year and that the qualifiers will be full of big hitters this year. That increases Sunday’s importance.”