In Kerry, the uncomfortable conversations won’t just be about Mayo

An unpalatable decision to stop inter-county players appearing for their clubs in the divisional championships in winter is not something anyone in Kerry relishes but it raises uncomfortable questions for the various stakeholders

TOUGH TIMES: Kerry's David Clifford and Sean O'Shea take a moment after Sunday's All-Ireland SFC final loss to Mayo at Croke Park. Pic: Tom Maher, Inpho

An earlier season finale means it isn’t just the harsh winter for Kerry after Sunday’s epic All-Ireland final. There’s an autumn to come first, and a county championship – or three - where some will make their points to Jack O’Connor and the Kingdom at large.

The manager may have some things to say too on that sore subject.

Kerry have been unfortunate B-roll in epochal All-Ireland finals, back to Seamus Darby and Offaly in 1982 - and beyond. This one to ravenous Mayo had a whiff of McConville and Armagh 2002 and of Cluxton and Dublin 2011, a relentlessness, manic tide eventually washing over them. A shade too of the Tyrone semi-final in 2003, Times Square mayhem and all that.

Jack O’Connor and his crew trooped home Monday evening unsure whether the pick-us-up of a Tralee homecoming or the desperation for a quiet corner together was the panacea required. The conversations and remedies won’t be short or shy about how they were out-toiled in their quest for a 40th, how they couldn’t handle the well-advertised Mayo press, but in those strict senses it’s a story easily told.

Darren Devine’s statistical analysis elsewhere today on Examiner Sport unmasks a painful truth for the Kingdom. They dominated midfield and breaking ball in that area but Mayo got off more shots off less possession. The new All-Ireland champions created turnover all over Croke Park and they did better in the essential match metrics of shots, turnovers and converting possessions into attacks. Kerry got off 29 shots off 45 possessions, Mayo 34 efforts from 40 possessions.

Critically of Kerry’s 18 turnovers, four were in their own back yard under the type of pressure they knew was coming over the hill. Mayo watched the clips from that 2023 semi-final suffocation by Dooher et al.

They were also untypically careless in kicking or hand-passing away the ball, especially in the second half. One, an intended pass from Gavin White to Graham O’Sullivan, began the Mayo counter that led to Darragh Beirne’s goal.

Kerry trusted their full back line to break the Mayo press, and both Paul Murphy and Dylan Casey were turned over for scores. When Casey went off briefly with a head injury, Evan Looney was caught inside as Sam Callinan pointed. 

It wasn’t all on them, however. Kerry’s lateral outlets in the middle belt did not graft nearly enough to get necessary separation for the out ball. Sean O’Shea finding Mike Breen under the Hogan Stand leading to a David Clifford point was an exception. Options were often shut down, or worse, not visible to under pressure defenders. Credit to Paddy Tally for prepping Mayo for this but Jack O’Connor clearly detected it and tried to remedy at the break. Something he said to RTÉ’s Damien Lawlor a short while after the game indicated as much.

"I didn't think we were dealing with the high press very well", he said of their opening half efforts. "We just needed to give the lads a bit of an outlet and we weren't doing that. We were letting the fellas hang out to dry a little bit.” 

A short time later, O’Connor reflected on what he concluded was the fundamental difference between the finalists – energy. Something his own side had displayed in abundance 12 months earlier against Donegal.

Just as Andy Moran had turned a question back on the assembled journalists after their semi-final win, O’Connor sought corroboration on Sunday for his take on what went wrong.

"A lot of factors came into the fact that (Mayo) appeared to have more energy. I think ye'd all agree with that? They appeared to have more energy on the field. That’s possibly hunger, or it may be the fact that we had a few men who were slightly under-cooked from the length of time they were out with injuries.

Was this as elemental as Mayo not wanting, needing it more?

“(For sure) hunger is a great driver. But there was no reason why our men shouldn't have been hungry. We have an ambitious team that want to win more All-Irelands. We felt we were hungry as well. There was nothing wrong with our hunger against Tyrone and Dublin out here?” 

This is no longer something the Kerry manager is lobbing into the mix as a conversation starter. The pressure and strain on the county’s elite players has now moved into tough talking phase between himself and GAA leaders at home. O’Connor has another season as part of a two-year agreement and there seems no reason why he wouldn’t see it out. But patience is short. 

They lost two players before the final last week to soft tissue injuries, Tony Brosnan and Diarmuid O’Connor, book-ending a year pockmarked by problems of this sort. Asked what the next couple of months looked like for him, the Kerry manager’s immediate instinct was not to discuss his own plans but bemoan that the elite will have precious little down time.

"I'll have very little control over the next couple of months because they go back to the clubs and they'll play whatever amount of championships – three for most of them. You just hope that they don't play through injury and they don't come back to us chronically injured in November and expect us to fix them.

“I've been saying for a long, long time that we can't keep this going in Kerry. We just can't. If you're playing virtually all year round and not getting a proper off-season and a proper pre-season, it comes back to bite you.” 

An unpalatable decision to stop inter-county players appearing for their clubs in the (third) divisional championships in the depth of winter is not something anyone would relish but it raises uncomfortable questions for the various stakeholders in Kerry – club or inter-county prioritisation. Should Shane Murphy, Evan Looney, Micheal Burns, Gavin White, Tony Brosnan or Mark O’Shea be playing for Dr Crokes in the O’Donoghue Cup (East Kerry SFC)? 

Ditto the Cliffords with Fossa. How about Jason Foley missing the North Kerry Championship with Ballydonoghue or Graham O’Sullivan not lining out for Dromid in South Kerry for the Jack Murphy Cup?

Before the final, he was asked whether the key people at the helm of Kerry GAA were listening.

“There needs to be a sit-down between all the interested parties here. Something has to give. I've been saying this for a while. It's not like I'm selfish and I want to grab the players just to play inter-county. I know the club thing has to go on. But we're playing three club championships down here. Every other county are playing one.

“And yet we're expected then to be competitive in the National League in January when there just isn't enough time to rest fellas properly and to get fellas back up to fitness. I just feel that something's going to have to give. It may be the National League if the club situation continues. You just may have to take the hit in the League.” 

In Kerry, the tough calls won’t just be in the team room.