Callow Kerry: Eight more times the Kingdom went with youth
DRIVING ON: Dara O'Cinneide means business early in his Kerry career. Pic: INPHO/James Meehan
By accident more so than design, the teams Jack O’Connor has been starting in this championship are among the most callow in recent Kerry football history.
On Saturday, he goes with three players who only made their first senior championship starts this year – Evan Looney, Keith Evans and Cillian Trant. It would probably be four were Armin Heinrich fit.
And two just debuted last season – Mark O’Shea and Dylan Geaney. And that might be three but for Seán O’Brien picking up a knock against Cork.
Another four on the bench have yet to begin a SFC fixture for the county. So whittled were Kerry for the Munster final that goalkeeping coach Brian Kelly was listed as a standby player.
By no means can you call it a transitional season when no player has quit but it’s a season of personnel upheaval so far, up there with some of the following:
The alpha and omega of Kerry’s transformations. In his first championship game in charge, Mick O’Dwyer handed out seven debuts – Batt O’Shea, Tim Kennelly, Ger O’Driscoll, 'Ogie' Moran, Pat McCarthy, Pat Spillane and Ray Prendiville. Páidí Ó Sé and Mikey Sheehy had only made their first SFC starts the previous season. O’Shea and Prendiville did not play championship again for Kerry but John Bunyan was another debutant in the Munster SFC final. By season’s end, three of them were still there in the team of bachelors and O’Driscoll was featuring off the bench.
The 'second half' of the golden years saw O’Dwyer dream it all up again and in another championship opener against Tipperary, Timmy O’Dowd, John Kennedy and Diarmuid O’Donoghue, father of James, were given their chance. Ambrose O’Donovan debuted a game later in the provincial final win over Cork as did Willie Maher.
In Moran’s last season at the helm, he inculcated youth into the team in the form of four U21s; Barry O’Shea, Johnny Crowley, Liam Hassett and Dara Ó Cinnéide. He had also given two others of that year’s U21 All-Ireland winning team, Darragh Ó Sé and Mike Hassett, their first SFC starts the previous season.
By the time he took charge, almost all of Páidí Ó Sé’s U21 All-Ireland winners had ascended into the seniors. He did give SFC starts to defenders Killian Burns and Charlie McCarthy, though. After Kildare ended Kerry’s hopes of retaining the Sam Maguire Cup in 1998, Ó Sé introduced Mike McCarthy, Noel Kennelly and Aodhán MacGearailt the following year.
Considered by the players to be one of their best seasons under Ó Sé, after being pulverised by Meath the previous season's All-Ireland semi-final, he turned to his nephew Marc, Seamus Scanlon, Seán O’Sullivan and teenage sensation Colm Cooper to freshen things up.
The first house that Jack built, Paul Galvin and Aidan O’Mahony being the obvious cornerstones. Their inclusions were pivotal to making Kerry a more streetwise operation. O’Connor’s Dromid Pearses club-mate Declan O’Sullivan had only come into the team the previous season.
It turned out to be Éamonn Fitzmaurice’s last year in charge but in it he oversaw wholesale changes. David Clifford and Seán O’Shea skipped U20s to be promoted, while Shane Murphy, Jason Foley, Gavin White and Ronan Shanahan were also given the chance to cut their teeth.
“Look, you take this team. I’m gone three years ago. It’s still the team I built from the time I went in, in late ’18.” The words of Peter Keane soon after Kerry lost to Armagh in the 2024 All-Ireland semi-final. For the Munster semi-final win over Clare in 2019, Keane gave first nods to goalkeeper Shane Ryan, Jack Sherwood (although he was a used substitute six years earlier), Gavin Crowley and Diarmuid O’Connor. Adrian Spillane was also given his head that season.
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