Hurlers stave off relegation threat
RELIEF all round for make no mistake about it, Kerry were teetering on the brink for a time on Sunday afternoon.
They won by two points – too close for comfort when one strike of a ball could have consigned them to the Christy Ring Cup for the 2018 campaign. As it turned out Laois did what they were expected to and comfortably saw off Meath in Navan.
That being the case defeat for Kerry would have been catastrophic and given how well they’d played in this game more than a little cruel. Kerry should have won more comfortably than they did, but hurling is a game that can see fortunes change in the blink of an eye.
The win gives Kerry a great chance of reaching the quarter-finals. Simply put if they beat Laois and Westmeath – as would be expected – recover to see off Meath in the final game then Kerry top the group.
If, however, Meath manage to beat Westmeath and Kerry lose to Laois they would have to be satisfied with third place in the group.
Another scenario, more likely we would imagine, would be if Kerry lost to Laois and Westmeath saw off Meath.
Under those circumstances Meath, Kerry and Westmeath would all finish on two points apiece, meaning it would come down to score difference. Barring disaster Kerry’s scoring difference would be better than Meath’s (who suffered a heavy defeat last weekend), but not better than Westmeath’s.
“We were disappointed last week,” Kerry boss Fintan O’Connor said post match.
“And that’s not taking away from Meath who were deserving winners. They had a good game plan and they stuck with it. They caused us trouble for large parts of the game. That said, we were disappointed at how we were beaten to a lot of breaking ball.
“We were trying to address that during the week and it’s hard to turn around what happened last Sunday in six days, and get a reaction out of lads. But our lads are honest, they are a great bunch of lads and they have the right attitude.”
The return of Pádraig Boyle seemed to boost confidence levels.
“It’s hard to have confidence when you are losing more matches than you are winning and there’s no hiding the fact that we haven’t won too many games this year. We got a nice start today and Podge is a serious forward and it’s disruptive to lose someone as good as him in the warm-up.
“I was delighted with the way we played today. Towards the end we were kind of hanging on and that probably comes from not being used to winning and not being able to finish out a game.
“All credit to Westmeath who kept fighting and fighting, as they did last week against Laois, to bring the game out of the fire, and with just 14 men today. We are just happy to be going home with two points in the bag.”
The game against Laois on May 14 is shaping up to be a huge occasion.
“The aim is to try and win it and get out of the group. After that, we’ll just see what happens. In fairness to the lads they are putting in everything they have.
“There is a lot of good people involved in Kerry hurling and they’ll make sure it keeps going in the right direction, no matter what happens in two weeks’ time, or in two months’ time, or in two years’ time.”