Plenty more pain heading in Kerry’s direction
Dublin humiliation could be a warning of what lies ahead
The county’s supporters might have to be patient
AHOME League game against Kildare wouldn’t usually set the pulses racing in the Kingdom. Not with players, management or supporters. However, tonight in Austin Stack Park is different. Eamonn Fitzmaurice needs a response from his players — and the Kerry public need to see that response. In a broader sense, his team need the points so they don’t have to go to Omagh next weekend looking for a result.
It had all looked so promising in the first couple of weeks in this campaign. Impressive wins against Donegal and in Castlebar, where they played the last 25 minutes with 13 players, led to many jumping to the conclusion that it was going to be a seamless transition to the new generation of Kerry stars.
Sean O’Shea showed that he has ability to score from all angles in the League opener while David Clifford looked like he was going to slip comfortably into the boots of Colm Cooper. The knee-jerk reaction was that the normal rules don’t apply to Kerry, and they don’t do transition like other counties. But that bubble was well and truly burst in Croke Park last Sunday.
It was literally men against boys in the second-half. And that was a Dublin team who were missing James McCarthy, Diarmuid Connolly, Kevin McMenamon and Eoghan O’Gara. The key lesson here is that there is no such thing as a one-year plan in modern GAA. Transition takes time – a lot of time – especially when you are moving from decorated veterans to a crop of talented young players.
The challenge for Fitzmaurice in 2018 will be to stay competitive, to remain in the top three teams in the country while at the same time, changing the guard, moving from the old to the new. It will be up to his most experienced players to help their manager in this regard.
Kieran Donaghy, David Moran, Donnachadh Walsh, Darran O’Sullivan, Killan Young and Darran O’Sullivan have given a lot to Kerry over the years and clearly don’t owe their county anything. But they are now needed more than ever. They have to assist Fitzmaurice by giving a guiding hand to the new wave of talented youngsters and ensuring they are integrated properly into the team.
When I went back as Mayo manager in 2008, I experienced a similar sort of problem. We lost a whole heap of experienced players over the course of 18 months, the likes of David Heaney, David Brady and Ronan McGarrity. We had no option but to bring in a host of young players. Those same players are now household names on the current team, but they had to endure a rough start. There was plenty of pain in the beginning, which culminated in losing to Sligo and Longford in the 2010 Championship.
So, last Sunday in Croke Park might not be the end of the pain that these young players will feel. The Kerry public are not renowned for their patience, but they might have to be with Fitzmaurice and this young team. It is going to take some time before this transition is complete.
There was once a time when it was possible to make the transition from one team to the other, fairly quickly. Mick O’Dwyer was able to do it in 1975, with those players that became the Golden Years team. But there were a lot less trapdoors or landmines at that time.
With all due respect to Sligo, who were still celebrating their first Connacht title in 50 years when they met in the All-Ireland semi-final, O’Dwyer was able to blood his new team by playing just two significant fixtures that summer — the Munster final against Cork and the All-Ireland final against Dublin. No such lux-
ury is in this day and age.
Fitzmaurice called last weekend a chastening experience for all Kerry folk. Last year’s League final victory aside, they have had to endure a lot of pain against Dublin over the past four years. And there might be a lot more pain to come in the short-term, although not tonight in Tralee.
What will make this transition even more painful is that players are simply oozing out of the woodwork in Dublin. There is such an assembly line of players in the capital that even without five or six stars, they still had enough to bring along younger talent such as Colm Basquel, Paddy Small and Niall Scully. Dublin just seem to have a massive quantity of really skilful players in every position, but they have kept their older players to be a guiding hand.
Kerry have lost a lot of significant campaigners very quickly in the past few years — the likes of Gooch, Marc Ó Sé, Aidan O’Mahony. The more you look at, the better the achievement by Fitzmaurice in winning the 2014 All-Ireland with a team that was papered together by very good management. They were able to eke out an All-Ireland when a lot of their superstars were coming to the end.
This is an even greater test of his management as he tries to keep Kerry relevant this year while blooding the next generation. There might be a bit of pain this summer — and given the progress that Tipperary are making, Liam Kearns may see a gap that his team can come through and make an impression. There may be some teams that will profit from the Kingdom’s short-term pain.