O’Brien banks on Kerry not being ‘perfect’ again

SIX days on from their tour-de-force in Croke Park, the real merit of Kerry’s performance in their annihilation of Dublin was again being questioned – this time in the context of how strong a challenge Meath will be capable of mounting against them in the All-Ireland SFC semi-final in three weeks time.

And, whatever could be said about the stunningly poor display given by the Leinster champions, the Royals’ manager Eamonn O’Brien had no doubt that the exhibition from Jack O’Connor’s team was as close to being perfect as you could expect.

O’Brien readily acknowledged that their display a week ago was special – that in all of facets of play he hadn’t witnessed such quality for many years.

“It was excellent – the passing, the hand-passing, the long passing, their movement off the ball – everything about it, ‘’ he commented. I’m not saying Dublin didn’t play below their best – and they obviously did – but I haven’t seen a quality of football like that for a long, long time.

“I said to somebody during the week, the three best teams are in the All-Ireland semi-finals and we’d like to get across the line – maybe to get the cuckoo in the nest.......And we are there.”

O’Brien, a selector with Sean Boylan for eight years (being involved with their last two All-Ireland winning teams, in 1996 and 1999), wasn’t unduly concerned by their slow start against favourites Mayo yesterday, falling four points behind before Cian Ward kicked their opening score in the 16th minute.

It didn’t worry him, he explained, because while they were giving away ball ‘too easily’ it wasn’t a case that they were playing badly. “There were only 15 minutes gone, so there was lots of time left. It was about trusting the lads to turn it around. That’s what you have to do – because there is very little you can do on the sideline at that stage. You can’t make changes that might do more harm than good.”

While Mayo went into the game as slight favourites, the Meath boss said that while ‘any reasonably minded person’ would have made that assessment, he never questioned the ability of his own team.

“We knew we were in with a good chance and we had belief in ourselves. When you have that you are always in with a chance. We were beaten by Dublin in the first round of the Leinster championship by two points and probably should have been beaten by a bigger margin.

“I think the (qualifier) draw was kind to us. We got home draws and it allowed us to build a bit of momentum.”

O’Brien said he had feared Mayo could have punished them because of their ‘aerial dominance’ in the full-forward line and the fact that they were once more forced to line out without Kevin Reilly.

And, while that threat was highlighted in the scoring of the Mayo goal and on a few other occasions, he credited stand-in full-back Anthony Moyles with having filled the role ‘admirably’ in recent games.’’

O’Brien has no difficulty in admitting that ‘on paper his team doesn’t look to be in the same league’ as the other three semi-finalists, but that it won’t inhibit them. “We’ll go out and give it our best shot and if it happens for us it happens.

“If Kerry play like the way they played last Monday we won’t be able to stay on the same pitch as them. But maybe they won’t play that well.”