Tribe have class to switch their plan but must be brave
WATCHING a fresh-faced Mayo side get demolished by Dublin players barely out of cruise control last week once again raised the question of who will challenge Jim Gavin’s side ahead of their drive for five.
With this in mind, I made my way to Tuam Stadium last Sunday. Of the teams that have an ambition of derailing Dublin this summer, Kerry and Galway should be at the front of the queue. It was clear from early in the afternoon that there is something stirring in the Kingdom.
I arrived at the ground 45 minutes before throw-in and the road approaching the stadium was lined by cars with the KY registration. There were six coaches filled with Kerry supporters. During Mick O’Dwyer or Paídí Ó Sé’s time in charge, it wasn’t unusual for the team to run out for an away League game in February to deathly silence because Kerry didn’t travel.
Times have changed. There were over 2,000 Kerry supporters in Tuam and one Galway County Board official even told me that the crowd was 50-50. There is momentum and hype gathering around Peter Keane’s young side, even if the manager himself is doing a good job of keeping a lid on it.
And it was easy to see why in their performance. Kerry had lost their lead in the 65th minute and were playing into the teeth of a powerful wind. Yet, they still managed to eke out the win. Four games played, four wins on the board and with two home games left, the Kingdom already have one foot in a League final and an unexpected early-season visit to Croke Park, which will have been beyond Keane’s wildest dreams when he took the helm back in October.
Judging by the way that hundreds of Kerry supporters spilled onto the field after the final whistle, they are getting pretty excited. Keane (above) is doing his best to play down his team’s smooth progress through the early stages of the season, but he will have slept very soundly on Sunday night. His team’s trajectory is only going one way.
Keane will be especially pleased by the chemistry displayed by Kerry’s new leaders — Peter Crowley, Stephen O’Brien and Tommy Walsh, who was a revelation in Tuam. His AFL experience came to the fore as he made four or five magnificent catches in the second half as the wind was picking up in strength. And he was moved out to midfield for 10 or 15 minutes early in the second half where he also exerted an influence. His ability to switch roles gives Kerry a serious hand to play with come high summer.
When you think that they were without David Clifford, Paul Geaney, David Moran, James O’Donoghue and Gavin White, things are looking very rosy in the Kingdom for their new manager.
We have to accept that their performance came against a Galway team who were also short-staffed with Paul Conroy, Damien and the Corofin contingent (apart from Liam Silke) all missing. And their injury list seems to have lengthened ahead of their visit to McHale Park as Sean Kelly went off with a hamstring problem while Shane Walsh hasn’t been named in the team for tonight’s game.
It is difficult to see the Tribesmen progressing unless they become more adventurous and attacking in their approach. They need to move the ball more quickly. No team has ever won an All-Ireland by playing 12 men behind the ball and moving it slowly through the hands.
Jim McGuinness tweaked the Donegal approach in his second year to make them a more attacking unit after realising the ultra-defensive approach hit a ceiling when Dublin beat them 0-8 to 0-6 in the 2011 semi-final. Galway need a similar tweak to their approach or they will not make any more progress.
The Galway supporters I talked to leaving the stadium all recognised this and they hope that Kevin Walsh will make a change come the summer. The thing is, with the likes of Comer, Shane Walsh, Ian Burke and Michael Daly, the Tribesmen have the personnel to do so.
They have a plethora of attacking options. Galway need a few different ways of playing to have any hope of dethroning Dublin.
Even in the opening four games of the League, Kerry have demonstrated their ability to play any which way. They can go toe-to-toe and man-for-man in a classic contest as they showed against the Dubs in Tralee, and they can also be patient and clever in trying to dismantle a defensive wall, as they did against Galway last weekend,
If a team is one-dimensional, as Galway seem to be, they are only doing half their job. Defending well but falling down in attack. And the only way a team is going to beat Dublin this summer is by going on the front foot and attacking them.