Keane fills the biggest boots of all

T’S hard to know whether Peter Keane was a man on a hiding to nothing, or a man with nothing to lose and everything to gain.

When he stepped into Jack O’Connor’s shoes for this campaign it at once felt like he was going to be judged by incredibly high standards and, also, that if he didn’t manage to win another All Ireland minor title for the Kingdom there would be few complaints from the green and gold faithful.

After all it’s not a reasonable thing to expect any team to win three championships in succession. Jack was Jack and what Jack had done would stand the test of time, two minor titles in succession, the Kingdom’s first in over twenty years... how do you match that?

By leading Kerry to a third for the first time in over eighty years that’s how. It’s not fair either to say that there wasn’t pressure on Peter Keane to deliver. From very early on there were whispers about the potential of this Kerry team.

As good as last year’s was the word and soon enough that morphed into them being even better than last year’s – a third Hogan Cup triumph in-a-row for a Kerry school raised the bar considerably.

By the time March and April rolled around the eyes of a county were firmly fixed upon the Cahersiveen man. Bit by bit his team gathered momentum and, along with it, additional expectation.

The hype went into overdrive after the demolitions of Derry and Kildare in the All Ireland quarter-final and semi-final. If there can be such as thing as playing too well this was probably the prime exemplar of it.

Not that, we suspect, Peter Keane paid much heed. In the civilian world he’s a business man. Sentiment doesn’t play a role, it’s cold, hard numbers that determine his decision making.

To him talk of how his team would just have to turn up and collect the cup on the third Sunday of September was just that – talk. As for comparisons with his predecessor or talk of the three in-a-row, equally so. This year was about this year. This year was about these players and nothing else.

The players responded in kind in Sunday’s final with a type of dogged determination to dig it out, to do what had to be done to overhaul a Galway side themselves primed to hammer the hammer, to tackle Kerry where they’re strongest.

Team captain Seán O’Shea, who played last year under O’Connor and co, had nothing but praise for the new management team as you would expect given that they led him and his colleagues to a famous victory

“The management team this year are great in fairness as last year’s were too,” he said.

“Anything you need they’re very open, they help us in every way they can and that’s how we can perform on the big day, there’s not too much pressure on us, they’re nice and relaxed and they’re trying to get us to play a nice brand of football which we enjoy.

“The craic we have in training, we’re with each other three or four nights a week and we’ve great, great friends inside there now and we’ll enjoy the next few days and a few lads are back next year under the same management team. Hopefully they can step it on again.”

There it is, the thing you must never forget about Kerry football – people expect. Even those who stand there as double All Ireland medallists, as O’Shea now is, have an eye to the future.

For now though it’s right to revel in the present. To revel in a victory that was as hard-fought as it was significant. There were plenty of hairy moments for the Kingdom, particularly during a second half where Galway made the running.

“Drained... is that an emotion?!” Keane declared as he leaned against the main desk in the auditorium under the Cusack Stand.

“We are delighted, we always knew this was going to be exceptionally tough. There was fellas that I met already and they were saying that this was going to be a stroll because of the scores we’d been kicking earlier on in the year. Far from it.

“From the way I’d seen Galway set out their stall, particularly against Donegal, we knew there wasn’t going to be a whole pile of space. We knew they’d be targeting our full-forward line and half-forward line with the scores we’ve been kicking and it’s great credit to them to keep us to ten scores was a fair credit to them.”

Kerry didn’t do a bad job either of holding the Galway attack to just nine scores.

“The defence was excellent today,” Keane agreed.

“[David] Naughten was superb. [Michael] Potts was superb. Daniel O’Brien worked very hard. Mitch Foley did very well. Look we conceded three goals against Cork and we were very conscious of that, we didn’t want to concede anything against Derry and next thing we conceded two against them which we weren’t happy with.

“We went out then against Kildare with a definite plan not to concede a goal and the same today. We did a lot of work with them in relation to Galway and the way Galway would set up. We had some very good A versus B games inside.

“We had well prepared for it. We knew this was going to be a real battle, from basically watching them and seeing them and preparing for them. We worked hard on our match-ups.

“Their two best players were probably [Robert] Finnerty and [Desmond] Conneely, two big guys who both were substituted. Against Kildare Robinson and McLoughlin were their two big players and the two of them got substituted so the defence deserve great credit, but the middle of the field worked their socks off, Mike Breen and Mark Ryan, super work.”

Sunday was both deliverance and vindication for Keane. It was the day he delivered upon his great potential as a manager. Practically every team he has ever been involved with he has improved and this was his greatest day... so far, we hasten to add.

He’s a guy we’re going to be hearing a lot about over the coming years. Starting with next year’s minors. In Kerry the expectation game never stops.