'It's easy being doomsday' - Kerry boss Griffin insists Christy Ring drop can prove a positive 

The Kingdom are left to pick the bones of a season that saw them survive in the league only to be relegated from the Joe McDonagh Cup after a heavy defeat to Westmeath on Saturday.

WORRYING TIMES: Kerry Manager John Griffin

While many in Kerry hurling see little immediate hope of the county side spending just one year in the Christy Ring Cup, John Griffin is not among them.

The Kingdom are left to pick the bones of a season that saw them survive in the league, despite losing to Donegal but then, having beaten eventual table-toppers Kildare, be relegated from the Joe McDonagh Cup after a heavy defeat to Westmeath on Saturday.

Kerry boss Griffin is going nowhere as he ends the first year of a three-year term. He hasn’t enjoyed any luck with injuries and neither have the county's best players. 

“Obviously, in any year like that, fellas are going to walk away. Maybe inter-county is not for them, simple as that," said Griffin after defeat at Austin Stack Park on Saturday. "We try every year to maintain certain standards. And we want lads to be able to meet that. 

"So if lads walk away for different reasons, and maybe if they're not playing for other reasons, I can't control that. There's only so much I can do for some lads. We were very unlucky with injuries this year. Daniel Collins, Shane Conway and a few more never played in the Championship.

"That’s it as well. It seems to be like a tsunami this year at times with injuries. Probably the last few, four or five weeks have been toughest. Was it anything drastic or different we were doing? No. Fellas just picked up injuries. Fellas had injuries from the start of the year. That's just the way things are. That's just it."

That doesn't quite answer the questions surrounding why players have been leaving the panel however. 

“I have nothing else to say on that," replied Griffin. "You're going to lose lads over the course of a year. We lost probably too many this years, but I'll go back to the start of the year as well. Too many lads walked away as well. Simple as that. And that wasn't to do with me coming in. It was just lads probably had said they weren't coming in. Maybe it was after something, a poor experience they've had the last few years.
"It can't keep happening, because it's happened year on year for the last two or three years, with the turnover of players. I've said that already. I don't want to be beating on it again, but you're playing teams that are together four, five, six years. They are together as a group and working towards something. 

"We probably lack that little bit of maybe vision of where we want to go at the moment. We're down the Christy Ring next year. Whatever happened today, we still get back to work over the summer. We are looking at a plan for next year. Who's staying on, who's not? And the work is only beginning. That's all.” 

Griffin believes going down to Christy Ring next season is not something which should be mourned in the county.

"It's easy being doomsday," he said. "About going down and relegation, those words: ‘going down to the Christy Ring’. [It] is not the end of the world!

"Kildare came up from there last year. They'll probably be in the Joe McDonagh final in a couple of week’s time. They've won three Christy Rings in the last six years. Offaly went down a couple of years ago. They came back up again. You have to do that. If we’d won today, we probably could be in the same situation again next year. You have to bring the likes of Luke Rochfords. Tomás Godley’ all them through, and maybe the Christy Ring might be a more friendly environment to be developing those players. 

"My mood was not going to be too high or too low today, whatever the result. If we stayed in the Joe Mac it would have been great, but us going down is not the end of the world either, because you have to develop a group to keep Kerry hurling going forward over the next few years."