Stacks looks to build on new beginning

WILLIAM KIRBY gives short shrift to anyone peddling the view that Austin Stacks’ storied tradition gives them a head start on the opposition.

“It hasn’t got us anywhere in the last six or eight years, has it?” the All-Ireland winning ex-Kerry midfielder shrugs.

“Some managers have tried that, talked it up, but this is a new beginning for Stacks, and the players we have now just don’t talk about what the club has won in the past.”

That new beginning has brought Tralee’s old-money football royalty to a surprising plateau this season – tomorrow’s semi-final of the Kerry SFC against South Kerry in Tralee (2pm).

Kirby, back playing, and sharing the coaching duties with Wayne Quillinan, is forthright enough to admit that the championship wasn’t even Stacks’ priority this season. Returning to Division One of the County League was, and remains, the important first step in the regeneration of the senior team.

For anyone in Kerry too young to remember John Mitchels’ golden generation of electric forwards in the early 1960’s, Austin Stacks’ spiritual home of Rock Street was the hatching ground for the Kingdom’s golden years of the seventies and eighties. Opponents were frequently beaten before a ball was thrown in, greying at the sight of Mikey Sheehy, Ger Power, Denny Long, John and Ger O’Keeffe, John L McElligott and Liam Kearns.

Stacks and Castleisland Desmonds dominated the football landscape for a decade and more, but both now find themselves below the top dozen clubs in the county. Neglect? “Not really,” Kirby believes. “In our case, we lost a load of experienced senior players at one time, and we didn’t have the young lads ready to step up. Billy Sheehan went to Laois, Peter Quillinan went to Chicago, Mike Finn left for Australia, all around the time that Pa Laide and Denis Sayers retired. We were trying to rebuild, but we couldn’t compete in Division One.”

It was a difficult time too for Kirby, whose influence on Jack O’Connor’s first season in charge of Kerry in 2004 was such that the coach recently compared his quiet effectiveness to that of Mike McCarthy in this season’s victorious campaign.

Kirby’s last run around the big parade ring was the All-Ireland final defeat to Tyrone in 2005 when he was only 30. Frequently described by his Kerry colleagues as the ultimate athlete, years of playing best support act to Kerry’s marquee names finally seemed to catch up on Kirby the following year. First a cruciate, then a fractured knee cap.

“I tried to play a bit again last year, but being self-Employed and now having three kids compromises your time,” he reasoned. By the turn of this year, he’d got an uninterrupted training regime going and Stacks were desperate for a new management team. His colleague Wayne Quillinan had coached the Stacks minors, U21’s and junior side, so knew most of the players. There was no better support act than the man with the handy bonus of a few stripes on his battle fatigues. Good to be able to steer his ‘new’ midfield partner through the difficult moments.

“Donaghy’s the one everyone looks up to now,” says Kirby of his junior partner. “There’s a real buzz in the camp now that he’s back from Kerry duty, and he’s fully fit. He’s a great talker, and you can see that when he’s around, everyone ups their game.”

The “new beginning” is all around 34-year-old Kirby. Kerry minor Barry Shanahan has been excelling at full back, while last year’s Kerry minor midfielder Wayne Guthrie and his equivalent this season, Shane Carroll, are on a bench that has a nice feeling of impact about it.

David Clifford and Graham O’Connell have also suggested Strand Road, the home of Tralee rivals Kerins O’Rahillys, isn’t the exclusive home to tyro talent in the town.

Facing a South Kerry side tomorrow that won four county titles on the bounce up to 2007 seems a tall order, but Stacks were also expected to take their medicine against Gaeltacht and Laune Rangers.

“There’s a danger some people might view us as being in bonus territory at this stage, but I’d like to think we’re a little smarter than that. We’ve every right to go onto the pitch believing we can make the final,” Kirby says.

“Before the quarter-final (against Laune Rangers), we had big County League games against Kilcummin and Currow, and then we had the Gaeltacht victory in the championship, so we’ve a nice head of steam built up. South Kerry is a step up again.”

Not that Stacks have shifted priorities. They have one Division Two League game remaining against Dingle in what could prove a winner-take-all affair.

“Annascaul are up to Division One, and Dingle still have to play Finuge, which won’t be easy. They may come into our game two points ahead of us, and if we beat them, we’ll be promoted on the head to head rule,” Kirby, who supplies and installs solar panels for a crust, explained.

‘The Rock’ hasn’t been in a Kerry county final since 2001, and tradition won’t raise a flag for them in tomorrow’s semi-final.

However South Kerry doesn’t tend to breed fools, and the divisional outfit, and raging favourites, would do well not to take the townies for granted in the Sportsfield tomorrow.

- Tomorrow: Kerry SFC semi-finals: South Kerry v Austin Stacks, Austin Stack Park, Tralee, 2pm; Feale Rangers v Dr Crokes, Austin Stack Park, Tralee, 3.35pm.