Has tide turned in Cork’s favour?

IT’S been three years since there was such a level of uncertainty in Kerry football and I find myself in an unfamiliar position today as I’ve rarely predicted anything other than a Kerry victory.

At the time of writing, significant sums of money are being placed on Cork and even the bookmakers could have Kerry arriving to Páirc Uí Chaoimh at 5 o’ clock this evening as outsiders.

Their assessment and mine is based on merit alone and we must be true to the evidence in front of us all.

The consensus in six days of intense foreboding in Kerry is that unless there is a drastic turnaround in terms of appetite and conviction the tide has turned very convincingly in Cork’s favour ahead of this evening’s replay.

I doubt anybody expects the teams selected on paper by both managers ahead of the game to materialise for throw-in but the changes required on the Kerry side are not related to personnel or position — but to attitude.

There is so much beguiling evidence from last Sunday circling in a holding pattern over the replay that the smart course of action would be to keep the shekels in the pocket and disregard what happened six days ago.

However, since the teams are unlikely to have done any major training in the interim, the Killarney game is the only point of reference we have and there are lessons for both sides that cannot be ignored.

Cork first, then. After blitzing Kerry with some shock and awe running at pace and in great numbers for three quarters of the game last Sunday, Cork retreated into themselves for the latter quarter and their hesitancy and lack of conviction means they had to rely on a questionable 50-yard free being awarded and a sublime kick subsequently from Colm O’Neill to keep their noses in front heading for the final whistle.

Kerry for their part looked like a team that has had their appetite blunted by five successive September campaigns.

Their full back line aside, Kerry conceded ground in every other line on the field and almost certainly will not escape unpunished again from allowing themselves have the game dictated to them for such long periods.

The bothersome reality from a Kerry viewpoint is that, even allowing for a more aggressive attitude, key players all over the field have conditioned themselves to play a game that has as its focus the big target man at full-forward.

When that target man disappears from the landscape after seven minutes as Tommy Walsh did last Sunday, the re-adjustment demands more time and sophistication than 63 minutes or indeed six days.

What then, are the lessons learnt last Sunday that neither team can afford to ignore?

From a Cork viewpoint, they will have noted how the Pearse O’Neill/Tommy Griffin mismatch yielded rich harvest and will no doubt try to engineer scenarios where Aidan O’Mahony is similarly exposed.

Cork will also have noted how John Miskella, Graham Canty and later on, Anthony Lynch were indulged by their immediate opponents on their forays into attack and will hope they will be allowed the same leeway again today.

While Kerry are forewarned about these uncontested runs at this stage, it will surely encourage Cork that Kerry were also forewarned of Philip Jordan’s, Ryan McMenamin’s and Davy Harte’s runs from deep last year.

The other big lesson from a Cork viewpoint is that both Nicholas Murphy and Alan O’ Connor play better when the antennae are tuned-in in advance to Darragh Ó Sé’s presence. While Darragh did as much as anyone last week to stem the red tide, he is still at the stage of his career where his input has to coincide with occasion of Kerry’s greatest need.

What if Cork play the game at such a tempo that the need becomes too great and too incessant for even Darragh’s input to be of any value? The Cork midfield duo have the legs to create such conditions. Whether they have the smarts to do so is still unclear.

How Kerry absorb the lessons of last weekend could potentially define Jack O’Connor’s latest term in charge. Even with a weakened hand, he made clever adjustments in the second-half of the drawn game.

The adjustments made ahead of today’s outing reflect the lack of legitimate hitting around the middle third of the field by their players the last day and both Declan O’Sullivan and Aidan O’Mahony will probably welcome their restoration to more familiar roles.

Indeed, legitimate hits will probably be more in evidence today and with Pat McEnaney in charge of the whistle, we can expect a more consistent application of the rules that players and supporters expect to be exercised.

Colm Cooper’s performance the last day summed up Kerry’s day in microcosm. The sublimity of his two second-half points masked an indifferent, almost apathetic performance. In fairness to him, much of the ball kicked his way was directed in such a way as to announce itself as 50-50 ball but he will know that his off the ball movement didn’t present much in the way of an invitation to those out the field either.

The last time Jack O’Connor and his management team were presented with such lessons and conundrums they came up with the Kieran Donaghy solution. If Tommy Walsh is unable to play, maybe David Moran will announce his arrival from left-field.

The last two drawn and replayed games between Kerry and Cork (2002 and 2006) inform us that sometimes a Killarney warning isn’t enough for Kerry and a humiliation may be needed to prompt a reaction.

All the signals are pointing to a Cork victory but if Kerry digest the lessons and regain the appetite of three years ago, they are still well versed in the art of winning football matches.