Ó Cinnéide seeing red over Ó Sé indiscipline
In an honest overview of Kerry football, 2004 All-Ireland winning captain Ó Cinnéide described last week’s Munster MFC semi-final defeat by Tipperary as “shocking.”
Ó Cinnéide, speaking yesterday at the launch of the 2011 Dingle Marathon, fears a lack of recent All-Ireland underage success could have a severe knock-on effect for the senior team. He also urged the Kerry county board to consider a “cold and calculated” root-and-branch review of football in the county.
Ó Cinnéide admitted he expected Kerry to lose the services of Ó Sé after the former footballer of the year was sent off for a straight red card offence against Tipperary last Sunday. A one-month ban was confirmed yesterday and doubled because it was a repeat offence within a 48-week time period.
Ó Cinnéide said: “We would have expected it. There was never a question about it from the minute he got the red card. It was a month automatically doubled, a fait accompli. It’s disappointing but nobody is more disappointed than Tomás himself. In terms of individual and team responsibility, Kerry have taken a bit of a hammering on disciplinary issues in the last 12-14 months and some of it is justified.”
Ó Cinnéide added: “It’s a blow but, knowing manager Jack O’Connor, he’ll have already moved on. Kerry are not exactly stocked up with defenders of Tomás’ quality but Jack will move on and find somebody.
“Shane Enright from Tarbert had a great league campaign and a lot of people would have considered him unlucky not to start the last day. He’s not as good as Tomás but he can become as good. Daniel Bohane came in the last day, a move that came out of the blue. He might be accommodated as a straight wing-back whereas bringing Shane in might take a couple of moves. Jonathan Lyne showed a bit of form too early in the season but it’s always been Jack’s form to pick lads on form in training and he could surprise us all yet.”
On the positive side, Ó Cinnéide pinpointed an improved second-half attitude from Kerry against Tipp last Sunday, but he was surprised the visitors, with the man advantage, didn’t attack the hosts.
Ó Cinnéide said: “I was standing on the terrace at half-time and worried. “If Tipp had shown ambition, which they didn’t, they could have caught Kerry on the hop.
“In the first-half, Kerry were casual on the ball, Tipp were winning primary possession at midfield and the ref could have gone either way. I was surprised and disappointed Tipp didn’t show a bit of ambition to kick on. They had Kerry by the neck and didn’t kill them.”
Junior and senior championship wins will have gone some way towards softening the blow of last week’s remarkable minor championship defeat for Kerry, when Tipp came from 11 points down to win by one at Semple Stadium.
And Ó Cinnéide insisted: “It’s shocking to be honest – worse than disappointing. It’s not good enough for a county like Kerry to be going as long as they have without an All-Ireland minor title (1994). Alarm bells are ringing everywhere. It’s not the end of the world if two or three are coming through from minor and U21 but we need a review, a cold and calculated look at how we’re producing footballers.”
Expectant Kerry fans demand All-Ireland senior glory every year, but Ó Cinnéide believes “an awful lot of things have to go right if the team is to climb the Hogan Stand podium in September to accept the Sam Maguire Cup”.
He said: The panel wouldn’t be as strong as it would have been and injuries and suspensions are starting to manifest themselves again. You can’t forever depend on a particular group of players to bail you out. This group has been fantastic for Kerry football but Cork and Dublin have deeper pools of talent at the moment.”
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