Patrick Kelly plotting Kerry rising

It was no fluke.

There was no lucky goal snatching victory from defeat, no debatable decisions.

Kerry didn’t fall over the line against Laois in their first game in Division 1B as much as tear over it. The only surprise was that the margin had narrowed to just the six points by the time it ended.

The final whistle was greeted by no more than a handful of yelps and hugs last Sunday. The few supporters who made their way from the Kingdom loitered around O’Moore Park to bask in the glow of such an unexpected occasion, but Ciaran Carey’s men turned to their warm-down.

An historic day and yet it was business as usual, too.

Carey has only been manager for the last four months. The Limerick man took over from Eamonn Kelly who had helped Kerry to promotion from Division 2A and to a Christy Ring Cup success that paved the way into the round robin stage of the Leinster Championship for the first time later this year.

The new man in charge couldn’t help but joke last Sunday about how maybe most people didn’t expect much of them after a local reporter had waxed lyrical about their stickwork, their aerial successes and their score-taking. Midfielder Patrick Kelly was even more bullish about this Kerry rising.

“We got our two points,” says the man from across the Shannon Estuary in Clarecastle. “We’re going playing Limerick next. We’re going looking to win. There’s no, like, ‘let’s try our best’. That’s rubbish. We’re going out to win. There were a few mistakes (against Laois). We’ll do the video analysis like every team will do. We’ll try and improve them in training during the week, but at the end of the day it’s only league. You see in the football championship that the league … they’re just good challenge matches because it’s all about the championship. We’re building towards the championship and trying to improve as we go.”

They open up that historic involvement in Leinster’s preliminary stage on May 1 when their old boss’ new team hosts them in Tullamore. Westmeath and Carlow will follow. Kelly’s eagerness to welcome summer’s onset is understandable and yet there is much to savour in the meantime.

Limerick’s visit to Killarney tomorrow is yet another notable step in the Kerry hurlers’ re-emergence and Kelly, who won an All-Ireland medal with his native Clare in 2013, has seen little difference in how teammates with his adopted county have gone about their business.

“In application, no. It’s the same intensity. The only probable difference is the pick in the county. Unfortunately in Kerry, they have a much smaller pick whereas Clare, the likes of Cork, Kilkenny, Tipperary, have a far greater pick because it’s their main sport in that county.

“But the level of intensity at training is still the same ... you have your early morning sessions, you have your evening sessions. Inter-county hurling is a full-time job without getting paid and that’s still the same (in Kerry). It’s upped a level again since last year.”

Kelly almost didn’t make it this far with them.

Rules allowing players such as himself to transfer from stronger to weaker counties deem that the practice must be discontinued once the latter moves up to the same tier of hurling, but Kelly was given dispensation to play on only last month by the GAA’s Central Council.

It was nothing less than a win for commonsense. He has strong links with Kerry that predate his involvement with the hurlers given his mother is from the county and he spent many a summer there, but this would still be his last season with them if an Armagh motion to discontinue such movements is passed at next week’s Congress.

“It would, but it’s a good rule for the weaker counties,” Kelly says. “Okay, I can understand the northern counties (being against it) because they’re not surrounded by hurling counties and it is harsh on them, but … hurling only has seven or eight counties whereas football has the 32. So we want to bring on more counties as much as we can in the hurling.”