Carry into Dublin game
1, 2015 - and it’s more than appropriate that the county that has the chance to deny Dublin a record equalling 34-match unbeaten streak is the title holder, Kerry.
Of course, the Kerry players and management (and we can assume their Dublin counterparts) will insist that the record won’t come into their preparations or thinking or approach to next Saturday week’s game and they’ll be right. What will be very much in their heads will be simply to win the game (and in Dublin’s case the added and understandable incentive not to lose the game).
Consider that Dublin midfielder Brian Fenton, since making his senior inter-county debut in 2015, has played 28 League and Championship matches and not tasted defeat in a single one (won 24 and drawn 4) and it gives an idea of Dublin’s invincibility in the last 24 or so months. That’s the task that Kerry face the weekend after next, but whatever about records or winning streaks - or even that it’s just the League - Kerry absolutely must at the very least put in a performance against Dublin to suggest they can beat them if and when they meet later in the summer.
Someone suggested last Saturday night that Dublin didn’t go out to beat Mayo; they went out to bury them. After their heroic victory in Tralee and an impressive showing against Roscommon the following week, Mayo would have gone to Croke Park in confident enough mood last weekend. Imagine the doubt sown in Stephen Rochford’s and his players’ heads this week.
If Dublin come away from Stack Park with a six or seven-point win on March 18 what exactly would it say about Kerry’s best laid plans? Notwithstanding that Colm Cooper, Johnny Buckley, Kieran Donaghy and some U-21s have to return to the squad, another loss to Dublin would surely have near fatal consequences for the Kingdom’s Championship plans.
Last year’s two League defeats to Dublin merely laid the platform for a three-in-a-row sweep for the Dubs against Kerry in 2016. Defeat for Kerry on March 18 would be their fifth in a row to a team managed by Jim Gavin.
The question for the Kerry management is whether to stick or twist - i.e. do they continue with the new boys like Jack Barry, Jack Savage, Ronan Shanahan and Kevin McCarthy and risk some or all getting scalded by more experienced Dublin opponents, or do Kerry revert to more seasoned heads like Anthony Maher, Darran O’Sullivan, Mark Griffin, Stephen O’Brien and Bryan Sheehan to go toe to toe with Dublin from the start?
The danger with the first scenario is that the game could be gone from Kerry before they even realise it, and the second scenario means Kerry’s bench would be extremely young and inexperienced and not the situation you’d want if Kerry needed reinforcements at the business end of the game.
The informed thinking would be to stick with the project of getting the younger players into the team early and often. Jack Barry hadn’t the greatest 30 minutes against Roscommon so he, for example, needs to get back on the field and get motoring again.
If Eamonn Fitzmaurice is going to turn to these players to win an All-Ireland in August and September then they need to know the scale of the challenge that lies ahead before they encounter it.
Mayo and Monaghan, thus far, have given Barry, Savage, Shanahan et al a taste of exactly what senior football is all about. Dublin will be another step up.
Kerry won’t win the All-Ireland Championship on March 18 but, in some respects, starting the wrong team or putting down the wrong message could be the losing of it.
It’s as close to Championship as this Kerry team will ever get in March.