Jack of all trades and master of most

“I’ve watched him develop with the Under 21s and the seniors,” O’Sullivan notes.

“He has improved all his basic skills and he is a fantastic example of how you can work on your game. He has worked consistently on his game and improved himself beyond all recognition, because when he came into the minor team the first day you wouldn’t have picked him out as a future senior.

“Towards the end of the championship year at minor you had great respect and you knew he was going to go a long way, but we didn’t know about him when he came in. He just kept improving all the time, kept working on his game and his attitude was outstanding.”

For Mickey Ned the real light-bulb moment came when watching Barry in action for UCD in the Sigerson Cup at the beginning of the year. If you’re good enough to compete with the best in the Sigerson, the Kenmare man surmised, you’re good enough to play inter-county football.

Barry not only held his own but thrived as UCD made it to the final in February. Though they lost out to Belfast side St Mary’s, Barry, playing at midfield alongside fellow Kerry man Barry O’Sullivan, had made his point.

By then, of course, he was already getting his game with the Kerry seniors in the National League having impressed during the McGrath Cup. Interestingly, for the son of a Cork-born mother and a Cork-born father, it was in a game against Cork in Mallow that people began to get an idea of what this guy was all about.

As the months have gone on, as Barry has gone from strength to strength, they’ve swelled with ever-increasing pride in the club house in Killeen. For the first time ever, one of their own had nailed down a place on the starting fifteen of the Kerry senior footballers.

“There’s a lot of pride,” Carmody says.

“I came in from Ballylongford about, what, twenty five years ago and I’ve been chairman for a number of years since, but I think for the older guys, Donal Lucey – an ex chairman – Pat O’Connor, you can see the pride in them that this is happening. You can really see it coming out in the older guys.

“We are the youngest club in Kerry. At senior level he’s the first to make the breakthrough. We’ve had a few juniors, a few minors and a few Under 21s, but no senior. I’d say David Culloty played maybe a challenge match or two but not anything significant.

“Jack would be the first man to make the breakthrough.”

The first, though we suspect, not the last. Na Gaeil are a club on the move and Barry is at the vanguard. The Tralee men have already qualified for the Premier Junior Championship semi-final and for Barry it’s something of a family affair.

His dad John is a selector with the team under the management of Donie Rooney, while his younger brother Andrew plays – like his big brother once did – on the half-back line.

“Success breeds success,” Carmody says.

“Once you do the right thing inside on the field players will come in and we have young fellas coming in their droves now at the moment to be honest with you.

“I think we’d be the second most popular club in town at the moment. Stacks would be first. We’d be second, because people just want to come in because they see the progress and probably see Jack Barry as well.”

They watch Barry and see the remarkable progress he’s made this past couple of months. From Mallow on a grey January afternoon to Croke Park in the National League final, the twenty three year old hasn’t been long making a name for himself.

As early as the first game of the league campaign against Donegal in Letterkenny he staked a claim. Shane Enright went off injured after just eight minutes and on to replace him came Na Gaeil’s finest.

So often you see players be tentative on their debuts. There’s almost a reverence for the green and gold that holds a player back at first. More than anything there’s a fear of doing the wrong thing. Get it, give it, do the simple things, build upon it next day out. Let nobody talk about you for the wrong reasons.

Barry’s approach was far more proactive. By the end of that game he’d notched his first point for the Kingdom in a competitive match and impressed well enough to earn the number nine jersey for the game with Mayo six days later. Since then – the last home game against Tyrone was the exception – he’s made that berth his own.

“There’s nothing that will daunt him,” Mickey Ned says.

“What I like about him is his ability to take on defences, to run at defences, because you wouldn’t have anticipated that would be his strength. What I noticed in the league is that he gave great ball, but he was supporting as well for the person to whom he gave the ball. He kept going.

“He gave in some very good lateral passes, vision, peripheral vision, he was able to see lads running off the shoulder and for a number of major scores during the league.”

By the end of the league Barry had notched up five points from play. His midfield partner David Moran – an All Star midfielder – had plundered 1-6 having started every game. Impressive stuff then from the dynamic newcomer.

It was in the games against Dublin, however, in Austin Stack Park and at headquarters that Barry’s very modern attributes as a footballer were most vividly revealed. He’s a fierce competitor and combative with it.

Those performances – and the one in the league final in particular – were hugely disciplined. It was less about his game than the team’s. To flourish Kerry needed to curb Dublin in the middle third of the pitch.

Ever since Brian Fenton burst on the scene for the 2015 season, teams, including Kerry, have struggled to cope with the Raheny man’s all round game. He seemed to have taken midfield play to a new level.

Fenton can field for sure – he’s got a great leap – but his game is about more than that. It’s his mobility and game intelligence that’s made Fenton such an effective performer. Barry’s mission – which he chose to accept – was to rein in the Dubliner.

In the league final Barry didn’t win any primary possession – although anybody who’s seen him play will know that he’s well capable. Instead, his energies were focussed elsewhere. It wasn’t a performance designed to grab the headlines but to win a match.

“I think he has it,” Carmody enthuses.

“He’s still young, only twenty three, but for midfield he’s still learning his trade a lot. The one drawback that I would see and I always said it to Jack, is that he’s a bit too enthusiastic. He tries to do too much.

“I’d say ‘stay between the two forty fives, get a full sixty minutes’, but you see up along he’d be substituted. He kind of kills himself very early, but I think he has to learn fast that you can’t do everything and I think he will too – I’ve no doubt he will.

“I’m delighted. You couldn’t meet a nicer fella. He has no arrogance about him, he’s just another club player and hopefully he’ll go on. I think there will be an All Star in him yet to be honest with you. That’s a bold statement, but I think there is.”

It is a bold statement – Sunday after all will be Barry’s first game in championship football – but having seen him come such a long way in such a short space of time is it really beyond the bounds of possibility?

Certainly not. The raw material is there. The drive is there. The desire is there.

Should he start this weekend – and we would expect him to – get ready to watch this guy come into his own even more. Cork blood, Kerry heart. What more could you

want?

You couldn’t meet a nicer fella. He has no arrogance about him, he’s just another club player