‘We felt we could really get at them’

AIB ALL-IRELAND CLUB SFC SEMI-FINAL:

They are too intelligent and polished experts of the game to do that.

But each in their own way refer to their perception of the mushy underbelly carried by the otherwise Kerry and Munster champions.

Chief conspirators in successful plots to fell Dr Crokes these last couple of Februarys, both can speak with authority on the subject.

Cross legend McConville recalls of Portlaoise 2012: “One of the things we would have felt was they weren’t physical in anyway shape or form. Whether it’s a compliment or a backhanded compliment, I don’t think they ever questioned themselves and asked ‘are they playing a better football team than us?’ They genuinely feel on their day they can give it to anybody.

“Of course, they go out and man-mark some individuals but it’s more about them trying to impose their game on you. But to do that they lacked that bit of badness or physicality. To be honest, we believe we could really get at them. That was what we viewed as one of their weaknesses.”

Curran is a little more circumspect but you get where he’s coming from.

Ballymun, like Crossmaglen, could play football but as Eoin Brosnan admitted earlier in the week the Dublin club “blew us away in the physical stakes”.

“Traditionally, Kerry teams back themselves and they don’t necessarily like it when teams have set themselves up to stop them playing,” says Curran.

“A lot of people didn’t fancy us but we knew we have serious talent in the squad and we just tried to play our own game. We also got the match-ups right.”

That theory of Crokes extended to November’s Munster semi-final when Loughmore-Castleiney resorted to overly physical tactics to stymie a side they clearly viewed as a superior football team.

Except, on this occasion, Crokes, galvanised by Pat Flanagan’s tutelage, were ready. Curran has heard of how losing to Ballymun widened Crokes’ eyes to their conditioning shortcomings, but he thinks putting the four-point defeat down to fitness is too simple a reason.

“I think people read too much into that being the difference. Ballymun are a committed group of players and had been putting in the strength and conditioning work a long time before that going back to the beginning of 2011.

“We were just lucky as we had very few injuries and players in top condition. Were they fitter than Crokes? I don’t think so. I know that Crokes went back thinking that they weren’t conditioned, which would make them very dangerous if they improve in that area.”

Twelve months earlier, Crokes had ran up a seven-point lead against Crossmaglen at one stage in the first-half playing into a gale. But by half-time, their lead was cut to two. Crossmaglen had them sized up.

“The first thing you’d associate Crokes with is being a great team to move the ball,” acknowledges McConville. “What we would have focused on was nullifying that by getting on top of their two boys in the middle and Brosnan at centre-back. The runs he makes straight up through the middle from the defence can be damaging so we tried to make sure that whenever he came through he was put back on his hole for want of a better word.

“The player we didn’t know much about was Daithi Casey and he was the one that did us harm with some nice slipped balls through to Gooch and O’Leary. If you can stop them then you can stop Crokes. By half-time, we’d got around to knowing how Casey worked.”

Crossmaglen fashioned a three-point lead by the time a Chris Brady goal levelled the game for Crokes, but it was only a small glitch as an Aaron Kernan goal handed back the initiative to the Armagh men.

“One thing we did differently was move the ball into the forward line very, very early,” remembers McConville. “Even though we faced a gale force wind in the second-half, we were still able to do it. We had Jamie (Clarke) in there and then Kyle Carragher came on and once they have the ball it’s difficult to deal with them. It was something Crokes couldn’t deal with. It wasn’t as if they were going to put an extra man back in front of them so we knew the passage into the two boys in there was made a lot easier.”

Having an able manmarker to shadow Colm Cooper helped too. Then Crossmaglen manager Tony McEntee said of James Morgan afterwards: “He’s the best defender in Ulster, full stop. I’m not talking clubs, I’m talking Ulster full stop.”

Equally, Sean George performed heroics in stifling the Kerry captain for Ballymun in Thurles last year. Curran remembers: “Sean had been suspended during the Dublin championship but when the new year came around you couldn’t but pick him because he was going so well. He ended up on Colm and had a great game. Most teams coming up against Crokes know if you keep Gooch relatively quiet you’re a long way to getting a result.”

George’s return allowed Curran to pull what proved a masterstroke with the redeployment of Philly McMahon to midfield where he was instrumental in helping Ballymun to a four-point half-time lead, which was the least they deserved.

“I don’t think they were expecting that switch and we had George wearing No26 and he wasn’t listed in the match programme. Philly’s a good passer of the ball but he doesn’t like to hand-pass it. We don’t mind him kicking it because he’s very good at it except from the full-back line. But it was a piece of armoury for us on the day because he was regularly finding Ted Furman inside.

“We were winning the midfield battle and that can be everything, making sure you’re getting the breaking ball more than the other team. Our half-backs were on the front foot.”

The ghosts of Crokes’ All-Ireland semi-finals past have spoken — but will they be haunted again?