Oisín McConville: Kerry would be comfortable in Ulster

Kerry won’t take this as any sort of a compliment but they looked like a team that would be very comfortable in the Ulster championship, writes Oisín McConville.

“Don’t let winning make you soft.” That Larry Bird quote was in my head going to Croke Park yesterday. He said it around the time of his Boston Celtics’ 18-game winning streak in the early 1980s. I was wondering if this almost invincible run of Dublin’s would make them soft. On the evidence of this final, it has. Dublin hadn’t been playing great this year. Okay, they finished the league in strong fashion but I sensed, particularly in the second half, that winning was having a negative effect on them.

Bird also said, “Don’t let losing make you quit”. And Kerry are certainly no quitters. I was expecting them to pull out all the stops to end their own recent record of woe against Dublin. To try to beat a team like Dublin, you pull the weed at the root and work your way up. And that’s what they did, nullifying Brian Fenton. Jack Barry almost took him completely out of the game. It was the first time I’ve seen Fenton so much on the backfoot. Every time he moved, he was stopped in some shape or form.

Kerry won’t take this as any sort of a compliment but they looked like a team that would be very comfortable in the Ulster championship. They used to have Colm Cooper and Declan O’Sullivan to unlock defences. But now they have to be more workmanlike in trying to get the ball into Paul Geaney, who’s a bit special at the edge of the square.

They would have been delighted with how they fared in the first half. Like a strong Ulster team, they contained, contained, contained and were depending on their one or two classy forwards to get them the scores. They were probably more willing to cross the line than Dublin too and that counted for something in the end. Not only did they do a job on Fenton but they also marshalled Dean Rock and Bernard Brogan. Paul Flynn was largely out of the game and was replaced. Ciarán Kilkenny was Dublin’s most positive player, always coming onto the ball at pace.

Diarmuid Connolly did something stupid again and is fast becoming Dublin’s biggest liability. Because of Flynn’s quietness in recent years, Connolly has become Dublin’s most important players and in the first half he showed himself to be the type of player Kerry need now that Cooper is gone with the variety of ball he was putting into the full-forward line. Connolly’s a pretty special player and he has, to some extent, curbed his tendency to do silly things but if you also factor in his club this is his fourth black card since August. Jim Gavin is that ruthless that if Connolly doesn’t get himself in order he will find himself surplus to starting requirements.

Obviously, a lot of neutrals would have been shouting for Kerry. The result will give other teams encouragement. There will have been a collective sigh of relief that Dublin can actually be beaten but have Kerry poked the bear? Dublin only showed energy when it was too late although had Rock kicked that late free Kerry wouldn’t have coped with them in extra-time as they were out on the feet by that stage.

Earlier in the week, Éamonn Fitzmaurice had a go at what was being said about Kerry and Tomás Ó Sé did the same a few days later. Kerry were starting to fight back off the pitch and here they were fighting back on it. Tadhg Morley was excellent and Barry performed his job to a tee. Paul Geaney had been doing it for Kerry for some time now but the question remains who is going to thread the ball into him. In the first half yesterday, it was obvious they didn’t have anybody up to that role.

All the same, Kerry will be happy. It may be April, both teams are missing players but you can guarantee that whatever Fitzmaurice says to his players from here on in they’ll buy it and they’ll perform it. They did so well playing the ball around Cian O’Sullivan and it’s not often you see him and Stephen Cluxton having a pop at each other as they did in this game. They were clearly frustrated that the game was passing them by.

Without Cooper, Kerry need a playmaker but now that Aidan O’Mahony is retired they need an enforcer too. It’s far too early to believe Gavin Crowley is that man but we can’t say he’s a shrinking violet. There were few Dublin players he didn’t have some sort of a run-in with after he came on in the first half. That’s exactly what Kerry, a team who have been put on their arse too many times by Dublin these last six years, need.

These young Kerry boys don’t have any regard for this Dublin team. All they have regard for is what Fitzmaurice says and they’re going to impose themselves on the game as he tells them.

Somebody is going to have to take Dublin’s mantle and Kerry, on the basis of this game, look to be leading the charge. But I say that with a serious word of caution. Dublin are unlikely to be so soft again.