Kerry prepare to break Croke Park losing streak
The tree overlooking Fitzgerald Stadium has since been cut down but anyone — from Donegal or elsewhere — hoping to get a glimpse of Kerry this week might simply stroll into the famous Killarney ground.
In the build-up to the Kingdom’s 2014 All-Ireland final with Donegal, an individual was discovered in a tree alongside St Finian’s Hospital grounds overlooking the team’s training session
It was reported the ‘viewer’ was known to Jim McGuinness, but the then manager later denied any knowledge of the incident. Interestingly, McGuinness had joked at the final press night the week before that he had contacts in Kerry: “I have a great group of friends down there and I am sending them an odd text at the moment that if you hear anything in the Kerry team to let me know. But there is nobody responding to anything!”
The year before, Éamonn Fitzmaurice had taken the decision to close the gates of Fitzgerald Stadium. Knowing how put out some supporters would be, he penned an open letter in which he explained his reasoning: “The monitoring of training sessions has become very intense.
“It has on occasions become much more than harmless curiosity. The information that such scouting provides can make a difference.”
That policy remained the same until this year when Peter Keane reopened them but under certain conditions. “Does that mean you bring them in all the time?” he said last October. “Probably not. But there are times when I don’t see it as a problem to open them.”
Defender Jason Foley has trained in a vacant Fitzgerald Stadium as he has with people watching, and he doesn’t notice much of a difference.
“We train in different places, Tralee, Killarney, and the majority of time people and the fans can come in and have a look.
You’re not really concentrating on who’s watching, you’re just concentrating on training because you’ve enough to be worried about trying to perform and put your hand up for selection than looking at the gate and seeing who is walking in.
Sunday marks the first Championship meeting between Donegal and Kerry since that final, when Fitzmaurice’s tactics worked to perfection. Repositioning James O’Donoghue from inside forward to playmaker and the man-marking job Aidan O’Mahony did on Michael Murphy were central to what was a victory against the head.
“I was on the subs for the minor team,” recalls Foley.
“So it seems a long time ago. That was a great day to be a Kerry footballer, but a lot has changed since 2014, new players, new management on each set-up, so we don’t tend to look back on those games.
“There was some serious tactical awareness of that Kerry management team, they got it spot on. James O was playing inside for most of the year, and he came out and played a kind of roaming role against that kind of Donegal team. The Donegal set-up has changed a bit since then, personnel and tactically. But that final was a tactic master-class.”
That Kerry did it in a way that defied their convention meant little as the end justified the means, Foley believes. “We were just playing for different teams. Kerry don’t have one set game-plan as such. Every team has to prepare differently for another team and we just came against that Donegal team that day and had to adapt to their set-up while also trying to keep our own bit of culture in the way we play.
We just prepared solely for that Donegal team and tactically if it was someone else in the final, we might have prepared differently.
“We won the game and that’s what fans strive for in every county, to see their team win. We’re no different to Donegal or any other county. It’s just the way the game panned out. The Kerry people were fine with it. We got the result and that’s all that mattered.”
The ferociousness of their League games since, particularly in Kerry, have indicated to an extent that the defeat hasn’t been forgotten in Donegal. “There have been a couple of nice ding-dong battles between ourselves notably in Tralee and Killarney,” agreed Foley.
Tough games but two tough sets of supporters and teams. We would expect nothing else and that makes great viewing.
Kerry aim to break frank a losing run of four games in Croke Park — 2017 All-Ireland semi-final replay v Mayo, 2018 Division 1 v Dublin, 2018 Super 8 v Galway, this year’s Division 1 final.
It’s five without a win including the draw with Mayo,two years ago but the record doesn’t mean much to Foley.
“Maybe it might be spoken of, the week leading up to the game or the night before, but it’s just another stadium, another team, and no one likes to lose there.”
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
