Kerry have ticked their priority boxes, so what now?

Seán O’Shea celebrates with Dylan Geaney, who scored both Kerry’s goal against Mayo in Tralee. Pic: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

Allianz FL Division 1: Kerry 2-29 Mayo 0-19

This is Kerry’s moment for pause. There may be a round of the Football League left in Armagh Sunday and a potential Division 1 final at the end of the month, but they’ve ticked their priority boxes.

No relegation anxiety? Check. A handful of spring finds to replenish stocks? Check. Playing Donegal in a league decider before April 1st? Hmm, we’ll get back to you on that.

It’s facile to trot out that every one of Jack O’Connor’s Kerry All-Irelands has been preceded by a league title, but each is different in its context. Going into the same penultimate round last year, the Kingdom had only four Division 1 points playing Armagh and looking edgily over the shoulder. Now they’ve nine points and can approach the Athletic Grounds any which way they please.

The All-Ireland champions are in rude health, almost too rude. They’ve top defenders (Gavin White, Brian O’Beaglaoich), midfielders (Mark O’Shea, Diarmuid O’Connor), and attackers (Paudie Clifford, Paul Geaney) still absent for one reason on another and they gave Mayo a five-point start and had 16 to spare at the close of business.

Will it benefit them to give Donegal (probably) another Croke Park look at them before the end of the month?

Either way, they have a multi-session camp in the Algarve over the Easter for five days, so whether they go as Division 1 champions or not won’t make any material difference to their periodisation for a first Munster SFC outing on April 25 in Ennis.

In many ways, it will be up to how the players see it, the Kerry manager indicated after Saturday’s thumping win over Andy Moran’s Mayo in which they had one wide all day. And guess who was guilty of that…?

“We put up a great score,” O’Connor agreed, “the lads were up for it, it was mainly driven by themselves. We weren’t sure what way they would approach the game. We weren’t in relegation trouble, so it was nice to see how they’d approach this game when there wasn’t the same pressure on them. I’m glad they put in a big performance and expressed themselves.”

O’Connor pointed out: “The thing is we want ferocious competition for places, the lads are champing at the bit, that’s what you need. We still have a few lads to come back and lost [midfielder] Mark O’Shea with a twinge last week. Paudie [Clifford] did a bit of damage to his thigh in the Monaghan game, and will be out for a couple of weeks.”

That bit is important. Kerry aren’t overly concerned whether the Fossa playmaker makes the Athletic Grounds but they absolutely will want him in The Campus at Quinta do Lago come April 6.

O’Connor and his coaches will lay the ground work for the summer there, and they want all their frontliners on the flight.

“The main priority was not to get into relegation bother and to blood some players,” O’Connor said of their spring. “They all realise there is no resting on their laurels, we want squad depth. I’m blue in the face talking about the amount of club football lads play down here, and then they pick up injuries. We had a lot of lads played late into November, the likes of Tony Brosnan, Evan Looney, Gavin White, Shane Ryan, and Mark O’Shea — all injured now, and that’s no coincidence. It’s very hard to pick it up in January, and remain injury free. That’s something that’s going to have to be looked at, I don’t think you can keep that going year after year,” the Kerry manager said.

Across the tunnel, Andy Moran’s glass was still half full, leaning on the sagacity of it’s never it’s good as it seems, and so it’s never as bad either.

However, they are leaking big scores and that needs to be addressed. He had a choice of sobering moments to select from after Tralee but he was bang on identifying the second quarter, when his players went from 0-9 to 0-4 up to 0-12 to 0-9 down — that’s eight unanswered Kerry points on the bounce.

There was another 1-7 scoreburst from Kerry after the break. A Rob Hennelly two point free narrowed the deficit to 0-13 to 0-12 a minute after the restart and the Mayo went scoreless for 10 minutes. They lost the last half an hour 2-16 to 0-7.

“You’d have to be very disappointed the way we faded away after what we did in the first 15-20 minutes. We take some hard lessons, it’s not going to happen overnight, but better to see it now than in a couple of months’ time,” Moran reasoned.

“I don’t think I was [that] happy with how we were playing anyway when ahead early, we were kicking the ball too straight, there was no angles to our attack, so even though we were five in front, I’m not too sure we were that good. When you go behind and you have to leave those gaps. If you are chasing a game against Kerry, they will exploit you.”

One first-half moment is worth noting. Kobe McDonald bumped Paul Murphy to find the yard of space inside and if his first effort on goal was well blocked by Shane Murphy, all the bouquets go to the Crokes keeper for getting up to smother the second effort.

By the general acclaim that greeted it in Austin Stack Park, the home support sensed its significance.

They weren’t far wrong.

Scorers for Kerry: S O’Shea (0-11, 2 2p, 2 2pf), D Geaney (2-3), D Clifford (0-8, 2 2pt), K Evans (0-2), G O’Sullivan, T O’Sullivan, J O’Connor, S O’Brien, M Breen (0-1 each).

Scorers for Mayo: R O’Donoghue (0-8, 1 2p, 3 frees), F Boland (0-3, 1 2p), J Flynn (2p), J Carney (2p), R Hennelly (free) (all 0-2), K McDonald, S Callinan (0-1 each).

KERRY: S Murphy; P Murphy, J Foley, D Casey; T O’Sullivan, T Morley, H Heinrich; J O’Connor, S O’Brien; C Trant, S O’Shea, G O’Sullivan; D Geaney, D Clifford, K Evans.

Subs: M Burns for G O’Sullivan (47), M Breen for T O’Sullivan (51), T Kennedy for Geaney (55), L Smith for O’Brien (56), T Leo O’Sullivan for Murphy (59), E Healy for Casey (63).

MAYO: R Hennelly; J Coyne, R Brickenden, D McHugh; S Callinan, D. O’Connor, C Dawson; B Tuohy, D McBrien; J Carney, R O’Donoghue, J Flynn; D Beirne, K McDonald, F Boland.

Subs: S Morahan for Dawson (27), D. Duffy for McHugh (half time), S Coen for D O’Connor (40), A O’Shea for Beirne (41), C O’Connor for Tuohy (55).

Referee: M McNally (Monaghan).