The size of the dog and the fight

From a county that bred mythical footballing giants, Kerry’s 2014 crop of defenders are more tight and tidy than terrifying.

But they all punch above their weight — like Rathmore’s Paul Murphy.

There was an interesting off-camera moment as Eamonn Fitzmaurice dissected the Kerry footballers’ quarter-final win over Galway in the press room under the Cusack Stand in Croke Park earlier this month.

As the head coach spoke, one of his Kerry tyros quietly slipped in alongside, unannounced and somewhat unnerved. But who was he?

Footballers, without helmets for protection, should be more recognisable than their hurling brethren, even the freshmen. And Kerry footballers, doubly so. But there were seasoned writers that day wondering not what question they might ask, but who they were asking it of.

“I could have done without that,” Paul Murphy sighed as he walked out of the media conference, his second interrogation of the day complete. But like his form on inside the white lines this season, the Rathmore lad didn’t put a foot out of place in front of the microphones.

There are reasons for underestimating Murphy, much like there are his fellow Kerry defender, Shane Enright. Most of them relate to stature. Where the Kingdom made legends from the deeds of giants like Joe Keohane and Tim Kennelly, Páidi Ó Sé and John O’Keeffe, Murphy and Enright are emblematic of a different sort of defending in modern football. A cultural shift where balance replaces biceps, and peripheral vision is as important as size.

It’s not like Kerry has jettisoned the raw-boned strength of an Eamonn Breen, a Sean Burke or even a Seamus Moynihan. They retain Mark Griffin in reserve, but the composition of a football rearguard is more about identifying man-for-man match-ups now as it is shape or structure. That is where this Kerry defence — unheralded though it is in the summer of James O’Donoghue — scores big.

The sextet that will start tomorrow is as comfortable in any of the six positions as the next one. Marc Ó Sé, Aidan O’Mahony and Shane Enright could happily occupy the half-back line just as Murphy, Crowley and Fionn Fitzgerald could play deeper. Previously Tomás Ó Sé was a lock-down at No 5, and Fitzmaurice himself was a centre-back all day long. Nowadays he enjoys complete tactical flexibility.

One Kerry player, who seldom gets to see the county’s minors play — invariably they are on the same bill — has even begun to associate the word minor with ‘small’.

“All you hear in recent years about the Kerry minors is ‘they’re very small,’ so maybe we shouldn’t be surprised there are no tanks coming through. I don’t think it’s as necessary now anyway.”

In his streetwear, Murphy — an accountant in Killarney — might look like a garsún you’d find counting his confirmation money, but well before his dramatic elevation this year to being Kerry’s defensive dynamo, he has been a leader-in-waiting.

“With emigration and injury, he has been basically holding the Rathmore seniors together the last couple of season,” says his club’s secretary Eoin Casey. “There have been games where he seems to be everywhere, shoring up the defence and storming into attack. He’s a pure leader, not in words but in deeds.”

Though he’s barely 5’9”, the size of the fight in the dog is ferocious. “He’s not the tallest by inter-county standards, but he has incredible balance which is critical for a defender, and he’s a wonderful reader of the game,” explains Casey.

Fitzmaurice brought Murphy under his wing as Kerry Under 21 coach, and both the manager and his selector Darragh Ó Se sensed they had quarried out a gem. League form this season has vindicated their judgment, and Shane Enright’s form this summer has also rewarded Fitzmaurice’s trust and faith in the Tarbert man, who could have been flattened by the experience of the All-Ireland semi-final against Dublin.

Enright shut down Brian Hurley in the Munster final and Murphy was entrusted with the role of limiting Shane Walsh’s impact in the defeat of Galway in the quarter-final. It was a bumpy ride for the defender but Eoin Casey didn’t fear for him — not when Rathmore defenders grow up facing Colm Cooper and James O’Donoghue.

“When you’re playing club football at home,” agrees the defender, “you’d be marking the likes of James, Colm Cooper, Darran O’Sullivan, so you get good training off them. And then you’re squaring up to them in training too. So you start to back yourself a bit and you know you can put it up to the likes of these guys.

“You also feed off their experience. Playing in Croke Park in August, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a few nerves, but you feed of the more experienced guys. You watch them and see how they deal with it.”

With the exception of his club colleague Aidan O’Mahony, none of the current crop of Kerry backs would be regarded as imposing specimens, but such is the regime of conditioning they put themselves through, that everything they possess is taut muscle. If the likes of Enright or Peter Crowley walk into you, Sunday can become Monday in a hurry. If Enright had chosen the ring ahead of the white lines of a football field, his KO record would be a statistic to behold. Similarly Fionn Fitzgerald may not carry the No 6 jersey the way centre-half backs used to, but he’s touching 6ft and is no shrinking violet either.

“When Paul (Murphy) was Under 14,” Casey says, “he was marking Barry John Keane against Kerins O’Rahillys and Barry John looked two foot taller than him. Paul never gave him a ball, so in the club we’ve been expecting him to break through for some time. We were surprised he didn’t make Kerry minor to be honest, but even since then he’s improved enormously. He’s been player of the year a couple of times, a pure shut-you-down defender.

Tomorrow in Croke Park, the possibility is that he’ll be back closer to his goal, patrolling Cillian O’Connor, in a full-back line that will also feature a rejuvenated Shane Enright.

“People will talk about Shane in the All-Ireland semi — and he didn’t have a good game — but any proper analysis of his 2013 will show he was one of our best defenders,” said one of his defensive colleagues, speaking anonymously. “He was excellent on Paul Kerrigan in the Munster final, and shut down Cavan’s danger man, Martin Dunne, who had been scoring for fun, in the quarter-final. Maybe now with Tomas (Ó Sé) retired and Killian (Young) not starting, people might start appreciating what a good defender Shane is.”

Murphy himself recognises he had his work cut out to keep Shane Walsh quiet against Galway, but the following day he was able to take stock of how fast and how far he’s come already.

“For the semi-final last year I was above in the Cusack Stand, but at least playing in Croke Park in the league is a help. Not that it takes any of the lustre off it, but it allows you develop a routine and get used to the surroundings, coming in under the Hogan stand and all that sort of thing. It’s different to any other place in the country, and especially for Championship.”

The stadium should be heaving tomorrow, and if Mayo’s teeth-chattering physicality matches the approach they visited upon Cork at the beginning of the month, Murphy, Enright and the other Kerry defenders will be greeted at the gate by a welcome that will rattle their ancestors.

We may soon discover how relevant the size of the dog in the fight is.