Cork only one capable of beating Kerry

Despite the strides Clare and the rest of Munster are making, Paul Brennan says that Cork are still the only county capable of beating Kerry on the provincial stage

AT half time in Ennis last Sunday this writer sent out a tweet: ‘Kerry under the cosh v Clare in Ennis. Half time Kerry 0-8 Clare 1-5. Donnchadh Walsh sent off on 2 yellows’. A follower enquired how would it, the game, go. My response: ‘ The stock answer is Kerry will come through by 4-6 points. But if Clare get couple of early scores and make it an arm-wrestle who knows...?’

Clare did, indeed, get a couple of early scores after the break - an close-in Eoin Cleary free followed by confidence building 55-metre free off the ground from midfielder Cathal O’Connor. It’s the sort of second half start the underdog always need against a top dog team like Kerry. But Clare needed more. They needed Jamie Malone’s 44th shot to scorch a hole in the net behind Brian Kelly; not to knock sparks off the crossbar. Goal or no goal, Clare needed to feed off the urgency that created the opening for Malone, not wallow in the missed opportunity as they appeared to do in the ensuing seven minutes when they allowed Kerry kick five points from play. In that time Kerry also hit the metalwork with Paul Geaney’s palmed attempt breached Joe Hayes but not the goal-line.

That’s the thing about these games. They almost always run along conventional lines. Previewing Championship fixtures like Kerry versus Clare, we give due respect to the strides the underdogs have made and are making. We suggest that Clare have a core of really talented players, but a lack of depth in their squad means they must squeeze every last drop out of their collective, and must - above all - execute every single chance presented to them. We caution that Kerry have to be on their guard. Not to be complacent. To stay focussed. Basically, all the things Eamonn Fitzmaurice will say publicly in the week before the game. Then, and only then, has the underdog a chance of causing an upset. It’s all fairly clichéd stuff but it’s also very true stuff.

‘They’ll run Kerry hard for fifty or so minutes before Kerry pull away’. ‘Kerry will run the bench if they’re in a bit of bother and that’ll pull them through’. ‘Better off getting a bit of a test and a fright than beating them by twenty points’. These were the things uttered on the streets of Tralee and Killarney and Dingle last week (and probably Ennis too) and, inevitably, they were borne out to be right.

Clare got their chances. They got an early penalty, confidently converted by David Tubridy, and they got the bonus of Donnchadh Walsh being sent off before half time. Level at half time on the scoreboard, a man to the good, and an angled wind slightly in their favour, Clare came out for the second half merely facing K2 instead of Everest. That was still the scale of things before them. Two wins in 46 previous Championship meetings is the black and white of it. Football matches are played in the here and now, of course, but history is a heavy yoke. Bad and all as the Cork footballers are at the moment, there’s a reason why Tipperary’s win over them last year was so seismic. It’s because it was so rare. Same goes for Clare’s historic 1992 Munster Final win over Kerry. Blue moons in otherwise black skies.

Had Malone breached Kelly’s goal with that 44th minute shot it would have asked an even toughed question of Kerry’s character and resolve. But it would have been still only a four-point margin with 26th minutes and additional time to play. Kerry, one feels, would still have been fine. And that’s not being wise after the event. Limerick, Tipperary and

now Clare have closed the gap somewhat on the shellackings those counties routinely took off Kerry - and Cork - forty, thirty, twenty years ago, but how close are we really to any other Munster county but Cork turning Kerry over in the Championship?

As much as those counties deserve credit for improving exponentially in recent years, Kerry, too, must get full credit for staying ahead of the pack when it could be easy to lose focus, even once, and get caught. When their eye is, understandably, on the bigger prize of the All-Ireland title, it would be understandable if they were to drop the ball once in a while on the provincial stage against a Clare or a Tipperary. But they haven’t and they won’t. The chief reason for that is that the challengers simply aren’t good enough. For all their opportunity at home last Sunday Clare simply hadn’t the talent or conviction to really go after the fourteen men of Kerry over 40-plus minutes and ask serious questions of them. Tipperary, having beaten Cork in last year’s semi-final, came to Killarney and folded like a cheap suit against Kerry.

There was understandable disappointment at Monday’s announcement that Pairc Ui Chaoimh won’t be ready to host Kerry against Cork in next month’s Munster Final. Disappointing for the Cork team and County Board for obvious reasons, while the Kerry team and supporters were probably looking forward to a change of scenery and christening the new Pairc with a Kerry win and a fifth successive provincial title.

Instead, Kerry now host Cork in Killarney and the Rebels have little left to lose. Having performed woefully in the one-point wins over Waterford and Tipperary thus far, nothing will be expected to Cork on July 2. Kerry will, with total justification, be unbackable favourites to win. Everything points to Kerry adding to the “terrible battering” Cork boss Peadar Healy says his players are enduring from the Cork public and the media. In other words, everything points to Cork pulling off a shock result, right?

A Cork team hasn’t won in Killarney since 1995. Far better teams than this one have come to Fitzgerald Stadium and lost. Grappling with Waterford until squeaking a win in added time, followed by scoring one point in a first half of football against Tipperary, isn’t exactly the form required ahead of coming to the home of the four-in-a-row Munster champions. Having the rug of playing in your spanking new shiny stadium pulled from under you isn’t really what the down-at-heel Cork footballers needed this week. Trying to persuade their dwindling band of supporters to travel to Killarney on July 2 (the hospitality notwithstanding) is the hardest of hard sells this week.

Do we expect Cork to beat Kerry on July 2? No. Do we even think it’s possible they might? No. But there’s still only one county in Munster capable of beating Kerry in the Championship and it’s not Clare, Tipp, Limerick or Waterford.

All we’re saying is anything could happen, and if the unthinkable does come to pass, I can say ‘I told you so!’