Momentum must

HEN the National League fixtures were released last September a cursory glance at Kerry’s first four matches suggested a yield of at least four points, and that’s how it has played out. The thing is, few would have expected the two wins to have come on the road while the defeats would have been on home turf, notwithstanding the opposition involved.

On paper at least, Mayo and Monaghan would have looked the tougher tests, but a first round trip to Donegal never looked particularly inviting, and given Roscommon’s bright start to last year’s campaign, a fourth round game in a revamped Hyde Park was no guarantee of points either. And yet Letterkenny and Roscommon town is where Kerry found the will and the way to victory, while the familiar surrounds of Austin Stack Park and Fitzgerald Stadium proved unkind to them. Or perhaps the Kerry team was unkind to their home grounds.

Either way Kerry’s next game is the visit of Dublin - now unbeaten in 33 League and Championship matches - to Tralee on March 18 for a highly anticipated contest under Stack Park’s floodlights. Kerry will have taken several positives from their weekend’s work against Roscommon, but Dublin’s trimming of Mayo in Croke the previous evening in Croke Park was and is a salutary message to the country that this Dublin team remains every bit as formidable as they have been for the last two years.

As we’ve stated here several times before, League results and performances don’t really count for much with respect to Kerry for whom the Championship really is the only thing that matters. One gets the same sense from Dublin, except that they just keep on winning League matches anyway, almost in spite of themselves.

Kerry have been shorn of a number of players since the start of this League campaign and they have been actively threading some new players into the fabric of the team. Along the way they’ve won some and lost some.

Dublin have been at the same thing - leaving some established players in the wings while Jim Gavin hands a number of younger players their opportunity in the team - but thus far they’ve remained unbeaten. Bloodied, yes, by Tyrone and Donegal, but still unbowed. They come to Tralee in 10 days looking to equal Kerry’s record of 34 games unbeaten across League and Championship, which was set in the early 1930s.

Interestingly, Kerry were the last team to beat Dublin in a National League or Championship match - a 0-15 to 1-10 victory on March