Cooper feasts on compliant victims

AS KERRY’s management watched their charges warm down after this bloodless victory, the chat quickly moved beyond the opposition and onto matters more pressing.

Like how to keep Colm Cooper’s wand weaving magic beyond March and into the summer.

Jack O’Connor mulled over the issue. “We were just saying is there any chance we could put him into cold storage for a couple of months,” he mused, half-joking. “He’s a confidence player who is enjoying his football. He got a lot of value out of that game.”

Good for Gooch, then, because few others at Fitzgerald Stadium did. Cooper’s eight-point haul matched Galway on the day, the perfect score package if you like — five from play, three frees and two off his right foot. And it ensured punters weren’t left sore for their €13 after a starkly lacklustre encounter.

For someone who watched Cork and Down joust at high intensity on Saturday night at Páirc Uí Rinn, this was the donkey and butt after the lord mayor’s carriage.

Not that Kerry can be blamed for that.

Galway’s demeanour yesterday was exactly that of a team with no points and no notion where the first one or two are coming from. That sense of resignation might be understandable, if not acceptable in the closing stages but not for a moment was there a sense from the visitors to Killarney that they could make life uncomfortable for Kerry.

The tribulations of Tomás Ó Flátharta have become a favoured spring topic of the cognoscenti but unless there’s a collective will going forward, this won’t be the only journey southwards they’ll make in 2011.

“They’ve gone through a rough ride in the last couple of years and it’s going to take a bit of time to get things working again,” sighed Ó Flátharta afterwards. “We’re down a lot of quality players but we know we have a lot of work to do. The players are working hard together, but it’s not going to happen in a day or two.”

With the exception of centre forward Owen Concannon, it was difficult to detect a sense of serious intent from a Galway player yesterday. Most played with a discernible sense of inevitability. Hence any noteworthy Kerry showings have to be asterisked.

“The pace and intensity of the two games we lost (to Cork and Dublin) were a good bit higher than today’s game,” conceded Jack O’Connor, himself keenly aware himself of the consequences of another Kingdom defeat. Asked about his compatriot’s troubles, he winced. “It’s obvious they are not playing with a lot of confidence, but that’s what defeats can do. That’s why it was important for us to get a victory today. Losing games eats into your confidence and undermines what you’re trying to do.”

One thing Kerry are working on is reducing their reliance on the aerial superiority of Kieran Donaghy. A less charitable interpretation might be that they’re finally working on a Plan B. Though Donaghy almost turned one crossfield ball into a goal — denied by a smothering Adrian Faherty save — Kerry eschewed the high angled delivery yesterday in favour of a measured ground assault. Most times the full forward got on ball yesterday, it was bouncing in front of him. O’Connor said: “After the Dublin game, we decided we weren’t going to be that cavalier with possession and the way we were kicking ball into Kieran. We’re trying to be more measured.”

The sides were tied at three points each after 14 minutes which featured a particularly unusual score (see 60 seconds panel) from Gary Sice. It would be another half an hour of playing time before Galway would add a fourth point, by which time Kerry had fed a 0-8 to 0-3 half-time lead to be 0-11 to 0-4 in front. Cooper, as you’d expect, sprinkled the scoreboard with delightful artistry, but his most impressive point combined unnecessary bravery with a swivel and right-footed first-half point. Even Kerry players have sympathy for the likes of Galway corner-back Alan Burke; they have to invent ways of managing him in training without doing him unnecessary harm.

O’Connor agrees that the captaincy gives the man who has achieved virtually everything in the game “a massive incentive” this season, but there is the perennial question in the Kingdom — have they become too reliant on their sorcerer? To that end, the return yesterday of Tom O’Sullivan and particularly Declan O’Sullivan for a 20-minute cameo is welcome, as is the sight of Paul Galvin involved in the warm-up. He’ll see action in Armagh next weekend.

Galway’s Cormac Bane had the honour of the game’s best score, a superb effort with the outside of his right boot. It inspired a three-point salvo from the visitors in the second half that was almost cancelled by a flowing move that should have been varnished by a Donncha Walsh goal. However a triple Kerry substitution with 20 minutes left shook them from an induced slumber as Tomás O Sé, Donaghy and Cooper doubled the lead.

Scorers for Kerry: C Cooper (0-8, 3 frees); B Sheehan (0-3, 1 free, 1 45); T Ó Sé, D Moran, D Walsh, K. Donaghy, S Scanlon (0-1 each).

Scorers for Galway: O Concannon (0-4, 3 frees), C Bane (0-2, 1 free), G. Sice, J Bergin (0-1). Subs for Kerry: T. O’Sullivan for B Maguire (51); A Maher for D Moran (51); Declan O’Sullivan for Sheehan (51); G. O’Driscoll for Darren O’Sullivan (61); D. Geaney for O’Leary (64).

Subs for Galway: J Duane for Coyne (15); F Breathnach for Cummins (half time); M Clancy for de Paor (44); G Higgins for O’Donnell (57).

Referee: M. Condon (Waterford).