“We think there’s stuff left in the tank”
TWO years ago Jack O’Connor brought his Kerry team up to Páirc Uí Chaoimh with high hopes of winning the Munster football final replay but left the ground in somewhat of a depressed state after a display which reflected a poor run of form from their opening game against Waterford. However, very quickly they turned things around after the inspired decision to play Kieran Donaghy at full-forward and went on to win back the All-Ireland title they had lost to Tyrone the year before.
The Kingdom are back in Cork this evening (5pm) for a semi-final replay earned by a dramatic late recovery of form in Killarney last Sunday. While circumstances are different from two years ago, there is an interesting parallel in the fact of his team having their backs to the wall and facing a Cork side whose continuing advancement is a tribute to the management of Conor Counihan.
O’Connor doesn’t view this merely as a single challenge — albeit a major one. Much more pertinently, he feels that it could go a long way towards determining whether or not Kerry can justify a rating which has them as co-favourites with Tyrone for the Sam Maguire Cup.
“A lot of fellows are thinking this team is coming to an end — that the fire might be gone out of the belly. We think there’s stuff left in the tank. This will tell us exactly where we stand and that’s a great thing in the month of June.”
Admitting to a respect for Counihan as a coach, the Kerry boss has no doubt that the Rebels are very well placed to make a bold bid for the All-Ireland. Indeed, he suggests that there is a case to be made at this point in time for saying that they could be the best team in the country. “There was often the old story that they were the second best team in the country,” he stated, alluding to the view often expressed by Mick O’Dwyer about Cork in the early years of his managership of the Kerry team.
“I’m not trying to flatter them or anything near it,” said O’Connor. “There could be a good case made for saying that because they have an awful lot going for them. They have physique, fitness and they have aggression as well as a lot of running ability.
“They are a serious team, and they will continue to be a serious team for a few years.
“They have been knocking on the door for a good while and the fact of the matter is that they have got a good blend now with some of the older lads and the younger fellows like, Kerrigan, Goulding, Shields and Kelly. They have a good mix. They are getting the kind of a mix that Kerry had in the 1997-2000 period, coming on the back of a good run of under-21 success. They are going down the same road at the moment.”
Without wanting to be seen to making excuses for Kerry’s unconvincing performance in the drawn game, O’Connor agrees that the fact of not having a championship outing was definitely a contributory factor towards their slow start. With a game under their belt, they would have had some reference point, he pointed out. But, they hadn’t a serious test since the League final (on April 26) and in the interim period the players spent time back with their clubs.
In carrying out a review of their display, the essential message that came through was that Kerry were basically slow out of the blocks. “That’s the bottom line,” O’Connor believes. “We were sluggish at the beginning. Cork had two points lamped over before we realised where we were and they blitzed us in the first 10 minutes.”
The early departure of Tommy Walsh was a further disruption and the end result was that they were a bit disjointed for the first quarter. It was approaching half-time when he felt they got to grips with their situation, but much later — the last 10 to 15 minutes — when they really got up to the pace of the game and made a real fight of it.
“You wouldn’t want to be giving Cork a start like that again and be hoping to reel them in. That doesn’t happen very often. I suppose the redeeming feature of the game was the fact that we showed a lot of heart in the last quarter of an hour when we could easily have thrown in the towel. There was plenty fight in the bellies when we were actually taking the game to Cork.”
Again missing Donaghy and naming Tommy Walsh in the hope that he can start, O’Connor accepts the view that without their two target men they’ll have to readjust their style of game. “That’s a bit of a challenge. I don’t think any team in the country couldn’t but miss those two players.”
However, change mightn’t be the worst thing: “Sometimes when you have a big man in there fellows tend to get lazy and they start hoofing ball in. That’s a big challenge in itself, to find other ways of scoring besides route one.”
Kerry have a mixed record in replays against the Rebels in recent times. They won last year’s All-Ireland semi-final replay having lost the previous two, in 2002 and ‘06, both in Páirc Uí Chaoimh. “It’s a big opportunity for us to turn that around. But, one way or another I think the game is going to be great for both teams because you can’t buy championship games like this. All the training in the world wouldn’t match the intensity of that game the last day.”
And, for all of the faults which were identified, O’Connor took a lot of positives from the game. Most notably, he says that the performances of Tadhg Kennelly and (substitute) Bryan Sheehan were big plusses. And, he delighted in seeing Paul Galvin firing in all cylinders again.
“The likes of him and Kennelly were the fellows who kept us in the game for as long as we were early on. But we’re just going to have to go at it from the off this time and try and match Cork from the start. You wouldn’t want to be digging a hole that deep for yourself again.”
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