Kerry experiencing an injury crisis not seen since 2009

The importance of sealing an automatic All-Ireland quarter-final and giving recovering players double the opportunity to get back to championship football won’t be lost on Jack O’Connor.

Just as he appeared to have nailed down a Kerry  midfield spot, Barry Dan O'Sullivan's season is unfortunately over. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Gavin White no doubt wanted to be proven wrong but his remarks at the Munster SFC launch in Killarney in March were prophetic.

“I think there will be an awful lot more injuries,” the Kerry captain warned. “That’s my own opinion, you’d probably have to go ask the sports scientists. Just from looking at it from the sidelines, you can see visibly there’s more running in it. It’s up and down an awful lot more, obviously the pitch and all that is the same size.

"It’s obvious that there’s going to be more injuries. I just felt myself in the last two games, the game seems to be going on an awful lot longer with the stop-clock and all that.

"I’m not sure if I’m the correct person to ask that, towards the end of the season maybe I’ll be able to answer that question a bit more. It’ll be interesting to see, but you don’t want more injuries coming into the game, definitely not. Time will tell.” 

It has told. Four of, if not all five changes to the Kerry team from the one that began against Cork for Saturday’s clash with Meath are injury-enforced. Barry Dan O’Sullivan’s season is unfortunately over.

The turnover in the Kerry team in this championship has been quite something. Should Mark O’Shea and Killian Spillane begin against Meath in Tullamore, the number of starters since the Munster semi-final win over Cork will be 24.

This time last year it stood at 22 but the changes were largely tactical as opposed to players being unavailable and their options greater. Adrian Spillane and Stephen O’Brien hadn’t yet retired and Cillian Burke was only thinking about switching codes to Australian Rules.

By Saturday evening, White is only one of four players expected to have played all five of the county’s SFC games along with Jason Foley, Joe O’Connor and David Clifford. Dylan Casey was set to be an ever-present too until he was named on the bench for the trip to Glenisk O’Connor Park.

To provide an idea of Kerry’s injury list this season, you could form a tidy team of players who have been unavailable at some stage with one ailment or another: Shane Ryan (knee); Paul Murphy (calf), Tadhg Morley (groin), Tom O’Sullivan (calf); Brian Ó Beaglaoich (leg), Mike Breen (calf), Graham O’Sullivan (groin); Diarmuid O’Connor (shoulder); Barry Dan O’Sullivan (knee); Paudie Clifford (hamstring), Seán O’Shea (knee), Seán O’Brien (knee); Paul Geaney (shoulder); David Clifford (ankle); Dara Moynihan (hip).

Has it ever been this bad? If Jack O’Connor could liken his predicament at the moment to any of his 10 previous seasons in charge, it would probably be 2009. He had no gripes about how that year finished but for long periods his ducks were drowning.

In May that year, he was struck with a full-blown crisis as Killian Young (shoulder), Kieran Donaghy (broken foot), Anthony Maher (ankle), Paul Galvin (ankle), Tommy Walsh (hamstring), Tadhg Kennelly (hand), Seamus Scanlon (leg) and Eoin Brosnan (hamstring) went down.

By the time the Munster semi-final bouts with Cork came around the following month, Galvin, Walsh and Kennelly were available again. However, when they met again in the All-Ireland final and injuries had cleared up and Mike McCarthy coaxed out of retirement, there were four starting changes with an entirely different midfield and an altered defensive spine and left flank.

Donaghy, footballer of the year three seasons previous, damaged his foot upon his return in the qualifier against Longford but fought back to return as a used substitute in the All-Ireland final.

Kerry are without question depleted again, U20 starlets Tomás Kennedy and Eddie Healy having been called into the senior panel to buttress training games although they did not make this weekend’s matchday panel.

The importance of an automatic All-Ireland quarter-final and giving recovering players double the opportunity to get back to championship football won’t be lost on O’Connor. In 2011, he felt David Moran’s cruciate injury was the losing of the All-Ireland for Kerry. Might Diarmuid O’Connor or Paudie Clifford’s return in Croke Park at the end of the month be the winning of one?

If there has been a silver lining to this litany of injuries, it’s that Kerry have developed their panel as a result of their setbacks. That would have been in O’Connor’s plans anyway after Kerry exited the championship in extra-time for the second time in four seasons, but the extent of which has obviously been more accident than design.

Speaking after the Munster final, David Clifford touched on Kerry’s need to deepen their reserves. “Everyone knows our semi-final last year with Armagh went to extra-time and they probably finished stronger than us, so just to build a bit of a squad and have more options is a big focus of ours.” But at the rate players are falling, the levee will eventually run dry.