The Insider: Crokes’ Casey looks to put one over his College friends

DAITHÍ CASEY is hoping his inside knowledge on UCC can inspire Dr Crokes to victory in Sunday’s Munster club SFC final in Killarney.

The promising 21-year-old lived, studied and played behind enemy lines long enough to know just how good UCC are, having won the Sigerson Cup and the Cork SFC with the college this season, and he is hoping to use that knowledge to help Dr Crokes this weekend.

“I’d like to think there is some information I could share with the Crokes lads, especially about the lads involved in the Sigerson Cup,” Casey explained.

“Every little bit can help, any advantage can be important on the day.

“It’s great that UCC are in the final too; when you play with them and when you’re such good buddies, it’s good to see them having success as well. But for me now it’s all about the Crokes. We can be friends after but for 60 minutes on Sunday we are in opposite corners.”

Along with his former housemate in Cork, Dr Crokes team-mate Johnny Buckley — intriguingly Casey also shared a house with Peter Crowley, the Laune Rangers defender who stars for UCC — he declared for the Kerry champions in the Munster club series, instead of UCC.

“I’m not surprised they’re in the final. After the Cork county final, I felt that they stood a very good chance of getting to the Munster final. They work so hard for each other and there is a great team ethic there. They have a deadly full-forward line inside at the moment scoring all around them. But they are strong in every department, that’s one of their real strengths. They are almost like a development squad at inter-county level. Most, if not all, of the players have represented Kerry or Cork at minor or U21 level, and then you have Niall Daly who is an U21 and senior with Roscommon. UCC don’t have many weak links.”

Currently on a year out of college, Casey and his Crokes team-mates are driven on by the hurt of last season’s Munster final defeat to Nemo.

“We still look back at that game and there are a lot of regrets, the first half especially. We didn’t do ourselves justice. It’s vital that we learn lessons from last year and bring all that experience into play against UCC.

“And it’s been a sign of the team over the last few weeks that character has been shown. When Austin Stacks, West Kerry and Mid Kerry all came back against us in the Kerry championship, we showed cool heads when they had their good spell, and we saw off Kilmurry too in a tight game in the Munster semi-final; a game that could have slipped away from us.”

Sent off for two yellow card offences in that win against Kilmurry-Ibrickane, Casey has an added incentive for Sunday’s Munster final besides the fact he is facing his college team-mates.

“I thought I let the boys down against Kilmurry but they came through and I owe them. Hopefully I can repay them some bit on Sunday.”