Past glories don't weigh heavily on Wayne Quillinan's Austin Stacks

Austin Stacks manager Wayne Quillinan. Picture: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

There hasn’t been much talk of 2014 within the Austin Stacks camp ahead of tomorrow’s Munster final.

Although Wayne Quillinan’s team contains six players who featured in the club’s last provincial triumph eight years ago, the current Stacks group avoids looking in the rearview mirror.

They are intent on carving out their own identity, said Quillinan.

“I was up in Páirc Uí Chaoimh as a supporter when we beat The Nire in the 2014 Munster final and it was an absolutely fantastic day for the club. But this season, 2021, what we are trying to create is our own identity,” explained the Stacks boss.

“Yes, we’ll pick the experience from the players that won in 2014, but for the majority of guys it is the first time for them and we are really trying to create our own identity as a team.”

Their identity when successfully coming through a straight knockout Kerry county championship was that of a well-organised side who were incredibly hard to break down.

Six scores was all they coughed up to the then reigning county champions, East Kerry, in the opening round, with fellow divisional outfit South Kerry also only managing six scores when encountering Stacks in the quarter-final.

Kerins O’Rahilly’s county final tally of 0-10 is the most any side has managed against them in 60 minutes of championship football this season.

However, they are far from content with this image of frugality that they made for themselves in Kerry.

“When you have a chance or an opportunity like what is there in front of us, you have got to be greedy,” he said.

“You have got to want as much as you can because opportunities like this, given how hard it is to get out of Kerry, there are no guarantees you’ll be back here again. I think when you are there, and when the opportunity is there for you, you have to grasp it with both hands.”

Ian Maguire’s aerial prowess and surging runs from midfield, coupled with Steven Sherlock’s razor-sharp finishing, has been the foundation on which the Barrs have worked themselves to within one hour of Munster glory, but Quillinan is adamant that stopping these two men alone won’t be sufficient to halt the Barrs.

“You look at Conor McCrickard, Denis O’Brien, Cillian Myers Murray, and Brian Hayes up front, and then Jamie Burns and Sam Ryan at the back, they have armour all over the place.

“It is not a case of Steven Sherlock and Ian Maguire, there is a lot more to the team. I like their collective effort.

“They are similar to us in a lot of ways. They do things as a team, more so than individuals. When you are managing and coaching against a collective like that, they are the hardest to break down. We have our homework done on the Barrs, no more than they will have it done on us.

“If we can get our performance right, we hope that we will be there or thereabouts when the final whistle blows. Every time we go out, our mantra is how can we get better. Sunday will be no different.”