St Kieran's will need East Kerry off day to cause an upset
Paudie Clifford East Kerry in action against David Roche Milltown/Castlemaine during the 2024 Kerry SFC round 2. Pic: Domnick Walsh © Eye Focus LTD.
Judging by the bookmakers’ odds, East Kerry, Dr Crokes, St Brendan’s and Dingle are considered almost racing certainties to advance to the last four of the Kerry SFC this weekend.
Indeed, according to Tyther’s in Killorglin, ahead of Sunday’s quarter-finals, St Kieran’s (7/1), Rathmore (9/2), Kenmare Shamrocks (9/4) and Templenoe (11/4) are given little chance of causing upsets.
However, the possibility of a shock to the system is always there, as Jimmy Keane knows only too well, having almost masterminded a stunning defeat of East Kerry four years ago.
On that August afternoon, as manager of St Kieran’s, the Brosna man saw his charges pipped at the post (2-13 to 1-14) at this exact stage of the competition, the victors going on to complete the two-in-a-row.
“It’s up to the boys to believe in themselves. You give them a few pointers in the right direction, you try and find a few weaknesses in the opposition, and then try and dwell on that. Obviously, when you’re coming up against a team like East Kerry, they had no weakness maybe,” he said.
“Every team has an off-day, you hope your opposition have that on the one day that you want it. You need a bit of luck as well to win any game and, unfortunately, on that day, we didn’t have it. If we did, we might have gotten over the line.
“Players, in any team, know their own capabilities. They wouldn’t be playing the game, they wouldn’t be going out training, they wouldn’t be putting in the effort, if they didn’t believe themselves that they would have a chance.
“You tell them to go out and play with as little fear as possible, it’s a type of occasion where you can go out with no weight on your shoulders, and just freely play the football that you like to play. I think, on that day, we did do that.
“We managed to stop the supply into David Clifford, and that helped us an awful lot. Paudie (Clifford) caused us problems, but we got to grips with Paudie after a while. We had our chances, but we didn’t take them. You need to take your chances at that level.”
The respective managers of the ‘underdogs’ – Stephen Wallace (St Kieran’s), David McCarthy (Rathmore), Kieran Moriarty (Kenmare Shamrocks) and Derek Moynihan (Templenoe) – will all be looking at ways and means of causing a seismic explosion on Sunday.
“You have the four favourites, but if you look at the flip side of it, there are no expectations on the other four teams. In a sense, they have nothing to lose by going out and having a cut at these lads. I’m sure they’ve all been building momentum to get to where they are,” added Keane.
“They’ll be quietly confident themselves that they can create an upset. Sport is sport, and if you don’t have upsets, then it becomes boring. Who knows? There could be one upset over the weekend, and every one of those teams are hoping they will be the ones to cause that upset.”
Keane’s best bet for where that surprising result could occur?
“I would actually be struggling to see where an upset will be. Maybe Kenmare could do something, if St Brendan’s don’t get it together. Brendan’s haven’t got their cohesiveness together yet.”
Sunday, October 6 – Dingle v Templenoe at Fitzgerald Stadium (1.30), East Kerry v St Kieran’s at Austin Stack Park (2pm), St Brendan’s v Kenmare Shamrocks at Beaufort (2pm), Dr Crokes v Rathmore at Fitzgerald Stadium (3.30).
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