‘The Kerry jersey means a lot to the lads’
“THE Offaly test is going to be massive,” Fintan O’Connor mused on Sunday afternoon.
His side had just put in their most impressive performance of the season to date and thoughts already were turning to what lay ahead. A do or die contest to decide between a place in the quarter-finals or a relegation dog-fight.
“I think Offaly again gave a better reflection of where they really are today against Wexford. They were competitive and by all accounts a little bit unlucky. I know last weekend they were very competitive against Limerick and Offaly have got some of their players back and seem to be going in the right direction.
“We’re going to be under massive pressure here in two weeks time and that’s the game it’ll all come down to and we probably knew that before the start of the year to be honest. We’ll either be playing a relegation match or a quarter-final.”
The positives out of this game with Galway, however, should give Kerry a huge confidence boost.
“It was positive in that we probably set ourselves a target of not conceding as many goals today as we have been doing and we probably had the help of two nice umpires who didn’t see Joe Canning’s [goal], but we’ll take all the help we can get!
“We were better defensively today than we have been for the last couple of weeks so that’s been a positive. The effort and work we got out of the lads to a man was a massive positive as well.
“In fairness to Jordan Conway he was outstanding. In the first half he did very well I suppose it was a very hard role for Colum Harty in the second half to be nearly alone. He has good running power and good legs and he’s a great worker so that’s a huge positive for us. I suppose if you are playing against a gale or if you’re under pressure that you have that option which is nice.
“To get Brendan O’Leary back onto the field and he caught a few puck-outs and broke the ball, did well, so there was a few very positive things from us.”
It’s worth remembering too that Kerry are without a number of very important players through injury at the moment – Mikey Boyle and Michael O’Leary principal amongst those – so for Kerry to stand up as they did is hugely encouraging.
“That gives the other fellas a chance to come in and put their hand up,” O’Connor noted.
“John Buckley was very good last week in Wexford and had a good day again today. It’s nice to see those fellas coming in and acquitting themselves very well and hopefully it’ll make it very hard on the fellas trying to come back in.
“The big thing for us is to develop twenty four or twenty five fellas who can compete at this level, that’s what we’re trying to do all the time.
“The Kerry jersey means a lot to the lads. They know who they’re representing.”