O’Neill: All the hard coaching work coming to fruition now

HE may have been the man at the helm as Dr Crokes retained their Kerry senior crown for the first time in almost a century yet Harry O’Neill was eager to deflect praise elsewhere when reflecting on yesterday’s achievement.

In his mind, this was a triumph for the entire club to savour.

“It’s absolutely brilliant to retain the title when no Dr Crokes team has done it in nearly a 100 years,” he said.

“It’s very difficult to do it in Kerry at club level. But these guys have been well-coached by a huge amount of people through their careers. I’m the lucky man at the top of the tree training the senior team but down the line there is a lot of hard work being put in. It’s all coming to fruition now.”

Dr Crokes settled quickly and produced slick play from the throw-in.

“We got off to a great start and I thought we were in control of the first-half,” agreed O’Neill. “Yet they turned the game around after half-time and it was back in the melting point. But we were all told that we were going to concede a goal from a high ball but we put one in on top of them and got one.

“I felt we controlled it after that and once we didn’t concede a goal, we’d be okay. We have struggled with leads all year so it was nice to win a game by five points.

“The break since the semi-final was crucial. It was well documented that we’ve been all over the shop with players away this year. You could see today that we had the freshness back in our legs.”

O’Neill reserved particular praise for the effort for his defenders.

“These defenders always come up trumps for us in big games and I’m delighted for them. Especially for Luke Quinn who has been plugging holes for us all year and he went to have a fantastic game today in an area where we were supposedly weak.”

And Quinn, who enjoyed a marvellous afternoon as he captained the team and was awarded the man of the match accolade, sang off the same hymn sheet as his manager.

“We had been scrutinised in the run-up to the game with people saying this and that but we know how strong our defence is. Players like John Payne, who has been our best back for the last three years, and Buddy [David] O’Leary were top class again, as were all the backs. We said before the game and that we would prove our doubters wrong today.

“We also said ourselves during the week that we need to get more goals. That’s Crokes football, that we are always good for a goal. The last couple of games we haven’t been creating too many chances but we came good today. It was a day when goals were going to have a big say, and it was vital that we got them.”

Amidst the euphoria, O’Neill was already thinking of the challenges that lie ahead. Next Sunday, Dr Crokes will travel to the Fraher Field for their opening Munster club assignment against Ballinacourty.

“We’ll enjoy tonight and there’ll be a celebration tomorrow. But we’ll be back in training on Tuesday night and then down to Dungarvan next Sunday. I saw them when they beat Kilcummin here a couple years ago and then put it up to Nemo. We won’t under estimate them and we’ll prepare properly.”