Royal win will stand to Kingdom, says Scanlon

WHATEVER about the lack of entertainment at Croke Park on Sunday, Kerry midfielder Seamus Scanlon is satisfied that the game will aid their preparations for the September 20 All-Ireland football final.

“I think we are in a great position. That was a tough game. We needed it after the game against Dublin because we didn’t know where we were either. Meath gave everything and they were physical in the tackle. The game is going to stand to us in the final.’’

And, while he and his team-mates may downplay their chances of beating Conor Counihan’s steadily improving team, the Currow midfielder has no doubt the Munster champions will be the bookmakers’ fancy to win back the Sam Maguire Cup after an absence of 19 years.

“I’d say Cork will be favourites ... and I hope that they are,’’ he said, tongue-in-cheek.

Interestingly, in view of the criticism of the pitch on Sunday, Scanlon had no real complaints other than to acknowledge that “it gets greasy in the rain, like most pitches”.

“The actual surface is fine,’’ he commented. “Conditions were greasy enough early on and you wouldn’t want to be bouncing the ball too much, but when it dried up we got to grips with it.’’

Overall, he felt that the conditions had a lot to do with the fact that the game didn’t run more smoothly and that it was so disappointing as a contest. More pertinently, however, he conceded that Kerry employed the wrong tactics in the first-half – that they weren’t getting ‘direct’ ball into the full-forwards.

“It was a different story with the dry ball,’’ he added. “When Tommy (Walsh) went in there for the second-half we started to get good ball into him and he did well.’’

And, while it had been congested out around midfield for most of the first-half, he felt that Kerry won most of the ‘breaking ball’ through the vigilant play of the like of Tomás O Sé and Paul Galvin.

Agreeing that the final is going to be “a totally different game”, Scanlon feels that it will be important for both teams to start well. “This is a different Cork team to last year. Physically they are a stronger team. They showed that against Tyrone. It’s going to be a massive challenge for us to win.’’

However, he takes heart from the progress they have made since going under to Cork in the Munster semi-final replay in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

“I know we kind of struggled through some of the qualifier games, but in each one we showed signs of improvement. I know we gave Dublin a bit of a whitewash, but Sunday’s game is going to bring us on leaps and bounds.’’

Experienced defender Tom O’Sullivan, who has hit a rich vein of form, denied the Kingdom had been hoping to meet Tyrone in the final. “To be quite honest about it, we just wanted to get to the final and that’s being straight up about it. Fair enough we are playing Cork, but we have no problem playing them in an All-Ireland final.

“We played them before in a final and we have played them in Munster finals. We are used to it at this stage, we know each other so much at this stage. But, it will certainly be a tough game.

“People will be saying that we were kind of poor against Meath, so I’d say Cork will certainly go into the game as favourites. I know it’s hard to play as well as we did against Dublin. That will probably never happen again, but we certainly went way down in our play on Sunday. We’ll have to improve if we want to put it up against Cork.’’

Not pleased about certain aspects of their play on Sunday – pointing out that the last thing backs want to see is their forwards kicking ball short or into a goalkeeper’s hands – he agreed with Scanlon’s view that they did very well from broken play.

“That was the big thing we took out of the game,’’ he added, “the way our half-backs and half-forwards won so much breaking ball. I think we did very well and we shored things up fairly well in the full-back line as well.

“But, we’ll certainly have to improve. Cork beat Tyrone well in their semi-final. That was something we couldn’t do last year.

“The way they played against Tyrone, they were outstanding to be fair to them – all over the field. They were always fast and they were always strong.

“This year they just seem to be a lot hungrier. The vibe coming from Cork (he was stationed there with the Gardaí for a few years) is that they are there to win. Not just to play a game.’’

Reflecting on the counties’ historic meeting in the 2007 final, he feels it could have been a very different story if Kerry hadn’t got easy goals at vital stages of the game.

“We got the dream start. That probably won’t happen in three weeks time!’’