The beaten generation
Jim Gavin will want Dubs to destroy new generation
‘DUBLIN HAVE DONE A MUCH BETTER JOB OF HARNESSING RESOURCES’
IHAVE no doubt I will be accused of ‘cute hoorism’, but the reality is that Dublin might just have more to play for in Croke Park today. That might seem an odd thing to write, given Dublin have already one foot in what will be a sixth Allianz League final in a row and will line out against Kerry’s kids with a team full to the brim of multiple All-Ireland winners.
Meanwhile, Kerry are 70 minutes away from a third defeat on the bounce – which will transport them right back into a relegation dogfight – so on that basis, the two points should mean more to our boys.
However, I don’t really believe that the two points is the prize that either team will be chasing today.
God knows, Éamonn Fitzmaurice would welcome a rare win against the Dubs but, deep down, he will know the team he puts out will not be good enough to win.
He won’t be telling you that, and he certainly won’t be telling his players, but the pragmatist in him will know that where he has seen stronger teams in the past fail, this one is unlikely to succeed.
Nevertheless, he will believe that many of the youngsters getting game-time today will be the ones to, one day soon, turn the tables on Dublin.
That said, Jim Gavin knows exactly what Fitzmaurice is thinking and that is why today he won’t happy to settle for any old win. After all, he gets those every other week, but the opportunity to drive it into the minds of an entire new generation of Kerry players – that there is a new order in Gaelic football – will be too hard to resist.
Therefore, he will demand his players not only win today, but do so in such a ruthless manner it will infect young Kerry heads with such doubt that it will make the job of beating them tomorrow, that much easier.
I don’t know if a League hammering can have that kind of long-term impact on a team because we were never positioned on such thin ice when I played.
But it would be naive to think that the most successful, ruthless and meticulous manager of his generation does not sense Kerry’s vulnerability right now. We should expect him to act on it.
In that sense I am fearful, but on a whole other level I am filled with hope for Kerry football.
I believe that we have the talent to topple Dublin. However, it is not going to happen today, or even this year either. And for all of Dublin’s dominance, I don’t believe that it instilled a fear in Kerry – that was there to be seen in last year’s drawn game in Tralee in the League final.
But Kerry are a lot more exposed now because of the lack of hardnosed experience on the team. In all my years we were never like that, we were always where Dublin are now.
For all the talk of the volume of Kerry’s emerging talent, it is Dublin who have made a far better fist of harnessing their playing resources.
We have seen that in how Con O’Callaghan hit the ground running, in the development of Niall Scully and, this spring, in the emergence of Brian Howard and Colm Basquel.
It is a slow, steady, even-handed approach where both the individual and the team are benefiting.
That is how we always did things too, with rookies fed sparingly into a team surrounded by established, experienced players. I started off playing alongside Seamus Moynihan, and it felt less like a full-back line and more like a classroom. And when opponents came to soften up the new boy, you would be deafened by the Kerry growls warning off opposing wolves.
That is not there now. When David Clifford came on against Monaghan last month, you could see that a couple of their players targeted him and they were given a free hand.
There was no-one with the authority to come in and tell a Monaghan player ‘to go f**k himself’ in the way that a Kieran Donaghy would.
Young players have to find their own feet, but they also have to be shown the way.
That is why Kerry have rarely been this vulnerable hitting Croke Park. However, a shortage of experience shouldn’t be an excuse to throw in the towel.
If youth’s gift is fearlessness, well then that is what they must unload on Dublin. If you show fear against the champions, you will perish.
What has been disconcerting this spring is that there are times when the mindset is still too defensive for Kerry’s own good.
We still seem to be putting too much emphasis on GPS readings than in trying to put the ball over the bar. Stephen O’Brien is a genuine handful when he is running at you, but he is just another body when he is running away from you back down the field.
And when Kerry players are not going back, they are going sideways.
The team has become too static and lateral as an attacking force and, in that sense, they are the polar opposite of Dublin.
Critics often point to the fact that Gavin’s men are not shy about getting players behind the ball but when they go into attack mode they do so with absolute conviction, ensuring that there are always support runners to ensure they aren’t stopped in their tracks.
The Alan Brogan point that closed out the 2015 All-Ireland final is a classic example of what I am talking about – they had players coming from all angles at us, creating the space for Brogan to plough through.
Kerry lack that conviction to attack with that kind of purpose and it is something that has to be found – and quickly.
Kerry need to be aggressive today, taking a leaf out of Donegal’s second-half display when they threw off the shackles, pressed high and wreaked havoc on Stephen Cluxton’s kick-outs.
I don’t believe Kerry have the personnel to execute that for 70 minutes and they will have to box clever at stages, but they have to show they have the belief and the ambition to play on the front foot.
Winning is a prize that is beyond them, but they can take something more valuable than two points from this outing.
If they don’t blink, they might just remind Jim Gavin and his team it is a long road that is not for turning.