Defence remains Kerry’s Achilles heel, warns Tomás Ó Sé
Tomás Ó Sé has claimed Kerry are the only county with the forwards to seriously challenge Dublin but reckons their shaky defence will ultimately let them down.
The five-time All-Ireland winning defender doesn’t believe new Kerry manager Peter Keane will be able to spoil Dublin’s five-in-a-row party this year.
The Sunday Game pundit said the reality regarding Dublin is “they’re just well ahead of everyone else at the moment”.
According to Ó Sé, Kerry forwards like David Clifford, Sean O’Shea, and Paul Geaney have the tools to ask serious questions of the Dubs defence.
But the former wing-back reckons the Munster champions’ backs are just not up to it.
“I remember harping on at the end of last year’s National League, there was 10 goals gone in,” said Ó Sé. “It’s not that you want them to park the bus, you don’t. But the Dubs don’t park the bus. They leave one fella back, if he’s not being picked up.
“If Cian O’Sullivan or Jonny Cooper aren’t being picked up, they’re clever and exploit that but it’s not Jonny Cooper or Cian O’Sullivan that are putting out the fires either. It’s (Brian) Fenton’s work-rate, it’s (Ciarán) Kilkenny’s work-rate, it’s (Paul) Mannion’s work-rate.
You can talk about Kerry but two glaring things jump out at me. The first one is the scores they leak, the goals they leak.
“Against Kildare, in the last game last year, before Neil Flynn got the road for Kildare, Kerry were in trouble. They were four or five points down. Kildare actually ran right through them.
“I remember saying it was a worry. Now, is it that we don’t have the (defenders)? I don’t think we have the defenders, number one.
“But I’d question our work-rate all over the field also. Our work-rate against Cork in the Munster final last year was outstanding. I actually got a great bit of belief out of it. They were hitting tackles all over the place but then the tackle count dropped. I’m not a huge man for stats but they do tell you a story and the amount of tackles made from then on in the Championship by Kerry came down big time, compared to other teams, it was off the Richter scale.”
The hope among Kerry supporters is that Donie Buckley, who is back coaching the Kingdom this year following a stint in Mayo, can improve the team defensively.
“His brief above in Mayo was 1-9,” said Ó Sé of Buckley’s work with Mayo’s defence. “Nobody could argue that Mayo were weak in the last six or seven years at 1-9, that was the foundation they had.
Mayo lacked killer firepower. Kerry have the firepower. Kerry have an abundance of it, they’re the only team in the country with the firepower to hurt the Dubs, I think. But the reality is they’re under so much pressure trying to keep scores out.
"The goalie is another issue. Shane Ryan looks like he’s going to start the next day. This is their third goalie. Brendan Kealy is in as coach now, you had Shane Murphy last year with Brian Kelly. It’s like American football, your goalie is key nowadays for possession. I just don’t think Kerry have the right to be questioning if they’re going to topple Dublin at all.”
Kerry open their Division 1 campaign on Sunday against Tyrone. “Tyrone will be there or thereabouts this year, I think they will be better than they were last year,” said Ó Sé. “The big problem for me is that Dublin will be on a different level than everyone else.”
Did ‘whispers’ influence handpass decision?
Tomás Ó Sé believes Central Council delegates may have received “whispers in their ears” from inter-county managers before the handpass trial was dropped.
Former All-Ireland-winning Offaly manager Eugene McGee claimed that county managers ultimately “have the GAA by the throat”.
But GAA president John Horan claimed that the influence of county managers, many of whom were highly-critical of the three handpass experiment, actually didn’t influence the vote to drop it.
“I was in favour of it,” said Ó Sé of the experiment.
“But I’d question a few things on it.
“Number one, regarding Central Council, it was a very close vote. How many of those fellas got whispers in their ears from county managers or county chairmen before going in there? I’d question that now.”
Horan said the vote not to proceed with the handpass limit was taken after contributions from all interested parties had been given.
I do think that the managers and the players had a detrimental effect on that vote,” continued Ó Sé.
“They were the only people talking about that vote and they were talking about it in one aspect and one regard. And look, the managers are trying their best. They are not trying to ruin football and I can understand where they are coming from.
“They are seeing it in terms of getting scores. It might have taken six or seven months for them to get used to it and they might have been out of a job and might get destroyed.
“The bottom line is no matter what you bring in, the cream seems to rise to the top all the time.”
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