Why long-lingering angst may help Kerry

PERHAPS in time we might come to view last Sunday’s breakthrough by Dublin as a defining day in the history of the GAA’s most fabled rivalry.

It was a day when Dublin, a team whose failure to close the deal has been casually intertwined with their DNA, beat the mighty Kerry, a team in whom it is bred to the bone to close deals when the blue tide is rising in Croke Park.

Only a churl would find fault with some of the tactics deployed by the losing side but the manner in which Kerry lost the game has deepened the introspection, sharpened the knives and accentuated the negative mood down in the Kingdom. What’s the point? Returning to the entrails of the match to forensically examine every ball won and lost is pointless as there is no competitive action for this group until February.

We expect that, in their private moments over the winter, the Kerry players and management won’t spare themselves and I know from experience that the finals you lose linger longer than those you’ve won.

In all the post-match analysis I have yet to hear of one person in Kerry begrudging the Dubs their win. Much like their last win in 1995, they fell over the line even if this time more spectacularly. The real reason Dublin have earned our respect is that they had a strong case for losing with six or seven minutes to go but chose not to plead it. With the Hill beginning to let out a few of its famously fatalistic groans, the Dublin players to a man, instead of following the script and allowing Kerry suck the life out of the game with a few periods of keep-ball, intensified their efforts, forced the errors and were richly rewarded. Who dares, wins.

Three years ago Kerry lost a final to a Tyrone team who played without fear in every department from start to finish. Their backs left players unmarked behind them so that they could dash out and attack the ball, their midfield bombed forward at every opportunity knowing they would be protected and their forwards roamed with impunity.

The game has changed a lot in three years and now caution and circumspection are the order of the day. Dublin never once left themselves exposed last Sunday and much as we might lament the demise of spontaneity and impulse in the modern game, Pat Gilroy has to be commended for having rid the Dublin team of the heart in mouth element in their full-back line and heart on sleeve element elsewhere. The Dublin team are brimful of the qualities most needed in today’s game — character, toughness and togetherness. Nothing we have seen or heard this last week, when little tit-bits of information escape from the group during post final down-time, has changed that. These are men of character and worthy champions.

BEFORE the game last weekend I bristled when a Kerry friend of mine said that perhaps a win for Dublin would be for the good of the game. While I could see where he was coming from, with Dublin having long stopped creating those memorable moments which inspire generations, I couldn’t reconcile that train of thought with a net benefit for the game. Kerry needed this one too. Long before the days of stultifying political correctness, Jackie Lyne famously said that “with those bastards of mountains in front of us and those hoors of lakes behind us, sure there is nothing to do but play football in Kerry”.

Much as we would hold that to be true sometimes, there are other pressing concerns in the county. Like every other county in Ireland, we haven’t been spared the challenges of our times and some small rural clubs in north, south and west Kerry are amalgamating at underage level in order to field teams. !

On Monday, my colleague Eamonn Fitzmaurice wrote on these pages of people outside Kerry “thinking we are greedy, that it’s great for the GAA for Dublin to win an All-Ireland and that Kerry has enough won. Until you understand that Kerry never has enough won, you won’t understand Kerry”.

When Kerry people make trite and self-aggrandising comparisons between football and religion they are conscious of the reaction from other football counties but Fitzmaurice is right and the experience of the last six days makes you realise once again that football means that bit more in Kerry and they will never apologise for that.

As regards the future, I believe that when the thawing out process has reached its natural conclusion Kerry will look back on 2011 as a year of staggering progress on some fronts. Losing will still be as detested as it ever was and standards within the county will always view a year without silverware as a failure but so many of the Kerry panel have become better players this year. They should be vivified by this. Brendan Kealy, Killian Young, Darran O’Sullivan and Bryan Sheehan to name but four have blossomed. They have set the bar for any players who doubted their ability to nail down a spot on the team and in the process they’ve thrown down a gauntlet to all emerging players. When thoughts turn to Allianz League football next spring players like Peter Crowley, Brian Maguire, Johnny Buckley, James O’Donoghue and, most notably, Shane Enright have to bring the experience of preparing for a first All-Ireland final with the Kerry squad to bear.

There will be the inevitable and wearisome talk of retirements but after all the touting, fellas will recognise their own time for departure and these decisions should be made after the league 2012 campaign. Then and only then will they know for sure.

In the bewilderment and back-biting of the last six days, there are no maps for the next phase on the journey but, either way, Kerry football will move on relentlessly and remorselessly. Just as it always has.