NATIONAL LEAGUES FOCUS ON KILKENNY HURLERS AND KERRY FOOTBALLERS:No county can churn out top-class footballers in the way Kerry can so they can always be regarded as potential All-Ireland winners, writes KEITH DUGGAN
WHEN DARA Ó Cinnéide retired from the Kerry football team late in 2005, he did not entertain any illusions about the void he would leave. The Gaeltacht man had been a regular name on Kerry league and championship teams for over a decade but in an interview with this newspaper the following January, he said: “I promise you, three more players could retire tomorrow and it wouldn’t be a problem.”
That could well serve as an abiding epitaph for the modern Kerry football philosophy. Although the Kingdom’s intimidating success rate went into a steep decline following the sudden break-up of Mick O’Dwyer’s post 1986 three-in-a-row team and the simultaneous rise of an exceptional Cork team, there is no sign of a similar fallow period any time soon. It took Kerry 11 years to win an All-Ireland after O’Dwyer, but since Páidí Ó Sé bridged that gap in 1997, Kerry have either been pushing for the major honour or winning it.
Throughout this decade, all Kerry losses have been deemed sensational results. In 2005, Kerry lost the All-Ireland final to Tyrone in a gripping match. Ó Cinnéide was stung by that loss and did show up for training that autumn. But when he found himself struggling to put names on many of the younger faces, he decided enough was enough.
When the two teams met in last September’s final, another gripping and relentless tussle, nine of the starting Kerry players had also been selected on the first 15 in 2005. (Although had all gone to plan, it would probably have been 10; Paul Galvin started in ’05 and would surely have been in the running for a starting place but for a turbulent summer). They had lost Michael McCarthy, Séamus Moynihan, William Kirby, Liam Hassett and Ó Cinnéide since that 2005 final.
For almost any other county, the relatively close departures of players of such quality and experience would have been tough to compensate for. And yet the machine, the system, absorbed their absences and Kerry kept on winning, sweeping to All-Ireland wins in 2006 and 2007 and pushing for the three-in-a-row until, once again, they met a Tyrone side in irrepressible September mood.
Ten Tyrone players started both the 2005 and 2008 finals against Kerry. But over the course of last September’s match, Tyrone manager Mickey Harte introduced three players – Brian McGuigan, Owen Mulligan and Stephen O’Neill – who had been key instruments in the 2005 victory.
Of the 2008 starters, Colm McCullagh, Martin Penrose and Colin Holmes had been on the Tyrone bench three summers previously. Kevin Hughes had taken a year out in 2005 but would surely have featured had he been available; he too came into the game last September. Tommy McGuigan, who started, and Colm Cavanagh, who came in, were unique in that they were the only two Tyrone players who did not appear in the 2005 programme.
Kerry, however, had successfully drafted in Pádraig Reidy, Killian Young, Séamus Scanlon, Kieran Donaghy and Tommy Walsh since that 2005 loss. Reidy and Donaghy, who was reinvented by Jack O’Connor into a player who would transform modern Gaelic football tactics the following year, were on the bench.
The Kerry bench in 2005 read: Kieran Cremin, Mike Frank Russell, Eamonn Fitzmaurice, Bryan Sheehan, Brendan Guiney, Darren O’Sullivan, Declan Quill, Ronan O’Connor, Paddy Kelly, Kieran Donaghy, Mossie Lyons, Michael Quirke, Pádraig Reidy and Tommy Griffin; a stunningly rich cast of players who could not earn their place that day.
There are two immediately apparent conclusions to be taken from the sumptuous ease with which Kerry players bow out and are replaced. The first is that it is tremendously difficult – an accomplishment in itself – to earn a starting place on the Kerry football team. Secondly, the talent that successive Kerry management teams have shown in preventing such a talented squad from becoming complacent – or becoming disenchanted at not getting field time – should not be underestimated. Hunger has been the key quality that has defined Kerry teams in recent years.
When Jack O’Connor commiserated with a shell-shocked Mayo dressingroom in 2006, he explained that the single year that Kerry had to wait to regain the All-Ireland had produced a form of ravenousness greater that the 55 years that the western county had experienced.
Meeting Tyrone again in this year’s final provided a new reason to surge forward. There was no shame in falling short in a classic and, as then manager Pat O’Shea said afterwards: “It’s hard to quantify the exact magnitude of being in five All-Irelands finals in a row and, literally, what that can take out of you.”
With O’Connor back in charge again, a remarkable period in Kerry football seems to be coming full circle.
Leafing through the teams that Kerry have fielded in the league this year, it could be deduced that the one man whose departure has caused most problems for Kerry has been Michael McCarthy, the Kilcummin man who conducted business on the edge of the Kerry square with quiet and, given the flamboyant nature of the players around him, sometimes unnoticed brilliance.
Tom O’Sullivan’s versatility meant that he was handed the task of stepping into that central role but in this league, young Aidan O’Shea and Aidan O’Mahony have both had runs there. But that is a minor concern. In the rising stars of Tommy Walsh and David Moran, the promise that youngsters like Daniel Bohane, Anthony Maher and Paul O’Connor have shown, the return of Darragh Ó Sé for another season and the return of Tadgh Kennelly from Australia there is much to suggest that Kerry are building a squad of devastating potential.
Sunday’s visit to Parnell Park is something of a sneak-preview of what is shaping up to be a heavyweight All-Ireland football championship. From the beginning, Kerry have radiated an intensity they do not always show at this time of year. It is in Dublin’s nature to respond to that. In rehearsal, Kerry have looked frighteningly good. We can only guess at the finished production.
