Kerry cynical? Yes, but good for them
PUTTING a phonecall through to Billy Morgan is like a game of journalistic Russian roulette. The gun is always loaded. You just don’t know if the bullet is in the chamber when he turns his attention your way.
Flinty. Passionate. Inspiring. Capricious. Take your pick. One thing that can safely be said about Cork’s goalkeeper turned All-Ireland winning manager is that he was never destined to enter the diplomatic core.
‘People look at the northern teams and criticise them for their cynicism, but the most cynical team is down south,’ he declared in the spring of 2006 after a fractious League encounter against Kerry.
The Most Cynical Team In Ireland. Headlines were made for such heart-on-sleeve reaction.
In Kerry, the faint sound of footfalls was of Gaelic football’s cognoscenti scrambling for the high moral ground.
Punching in his mobile number then for a considered follow up not long after, the only sound at the end of the line was a click. ‘I was quite frustrated after the game and it was more through frustration and anger that I said those things,’ he explained, the lack of a retraction, though, notably hanging in the air.
For someone for whom beating Kerry has resembled his life’s work, he warmed to the same theme later that year after seeing his Cork side turned over again in a spiky All-Ireland semi-final. ‘There has been a lot of talk about Kerry’s cynicism all year and today they showed again just how cynical they are.’
Last spring, Rory Gallagher greeted the media with a face like thunder after a feisty, cantankerous affair against Kerry, quickly dubbed ‘The Blows of Tralee’. The only difference to Morgan a decade earlier is that when the dictaphones were turned on, he took the ‘move on and look forward to the next battle’ approach.
The battle lines drawn in Tralee last Saturday night was in keeping with a Kerry tradition of being able to get down and dirty when deemed necessary. Just go back to Killarney two years ago, the last time Dublin suffered a defeat before setting off on a record equalling 34match unbeaten run in League and Championship.
Jim Gavin hasn’t been as ruffled before or since, going close to accusing the reigning All-Ireland champions of gamesmanship.
‘Overall very pleased the way the players, in terms of discipline, that any hits they got they got straight back up and played the game, didn’t try to influence the referee. Played good honest football which is what we expect from them.’
Before the game, former Kerry manager Pat O’Shea celebrated the manner in which Kerry ‘uphold the pureness of Gaelic football’ and how the rivalry with Dublin is based on ‘the values of the Kevin Heffernans and Mick O’Dwyers going back 50 years’.
All of that is true. But they can also be cynical when needed.
Last Saturday night just confirmed why the roll of honour is a Mount Rushmore of Kerry legends, 37 AllIrelands a testament to a proud tradition as the game’s aristocrats but also to a cold-eyed understanding of what it takes to win. Because that’s how elite sport operates. Anything else is just wide-eyed naivete. To those who bemoan the black card, just imagine how Saturday night would have played out without a punishment for a deliberate body collide or deliberate pull down. It would have been a free-for-all. ‘It’s systematic fouling… and it’s working,’ said Senan Connell of Kerry’s first-half tactics, the former Dublin player not afraid to summon the spirit of Billy Morgan on the half-time panel on the eir Sport live broadcast. Marc Ó Sé, sitting two seats down, didn’t bat an eyelid. That exact same charge was held against Kerry champions Dr Crokes in their victory over Slaughtneil in the AllIreland club football final last Friday in terms of targeting Chrissy McKaigue at source, the one player who quarterbacks the game for the opposition.
Do you think Colm Cooper (left) or any of his team-mates had a guilty conscience at the final whistle? This is the same player who sustained a bite mark in the 2003 All-Ireland semi-final against Tyrone. Who was rugby-tackled to the ground by Peter Canavan late in the 2005 decider.
Sport, at the highest level, lends itself to doing whatever it takes. The best players understand that as much as anyone. The best teams, too.
When David Moran was yellowcarded for an innocuous foul on Eric Lowndes, eir Sport’s co-commentator Billy Joe Padden observed: ‘This is probably as much for the persistent fouling Kerry have employed in this first half to try and stop these counter-attacks’.
The same player was a man of the match contedner.
But for Paul Murphy’s loose freekick right at the death, Kerry most likely would be still basking in the warm glow of being the county to end Dublin’s remarkable streak.
Cynical? Kerry don’t need to apologise to anyone.
Players will do whatever it takes now