Kealy: Kingdom now getting basics right

Brendan Kealy maintains there is nothing cryptic behind Kerry’s poor start to Division One.

Saving Johnny Doyle’s penalty, the Kerry goalkeeper contributed to his team’s second-half comeback against Kildare on Sunday, which came up short in the end.

But after the dismal defeats to Mayo and Dublin, the performance in Newbridge marked an improvement.

Kealy puts it down to getting the fundamentals right.

“It was about getting back to basics,” he said. “We were making basic errors. There was no rocket science with what we were doing and weren’t doing. It was just trying to minimise the mistakes and working on our fitness. We were looking for a reaction after the last two games. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the two points but we’ll look at the positives. There’s still a lot to work on but we got a reaction, which was encouraging.”

A wide count of 16 would gall a lot of defeated teams but this Kerry side are coming from an unprecedented base where they were spoken of as being in crisis. Relegation will become a distinct possibility for Kerry should they fail to get anything out of Sunday’s trip to Ballybofey.

It mightn’t have offered points but the Newbridge performance offered Kerry a little solace. “At this stage, you’re looking for the curve to go upwards and with this game it’s gone up a notch,” remarked Kealy. “The last two games, there wasn’t much of an increase but hopefully if we can kick on from this we’ll turn the corner.”

If Kerry are looking for more reasons for optimism, they can look back at last season when Donegal stayed up despite picking up just two points in their first four games.

Of course, they must get a couple on the board and Eamonn Fitzmaurice has openly spoken about survival.

However, Kealy is more inclined to concentrate on each game, starting with Donegal. Although, the task now is an onerous one and they should expect nothing like the nine-point win they enjoyed against Donegal in Killarney last year. Under Jim McGuinness, Ballybofey has become something of a fortress for the All-Ireland champions.

“It’s about taking each game on its own,” stresses Kealy. “If we get the performance right, results will follow.

“We’ll go up to Donegal next week hoping that we get the performance right and try and get the two points and see what leaves us. It’s difficult but it’s a challenge and you have to enjoy them when they’re in front of you.

“It’s about taking one game at a time and we’ll see where that takes us.”