Success breeds success in the land of plenty around Lewis Road

Paul Brennan spoke to Dr Crokes selector Harry O’Neill about how the county and All-Ireland champions are motivated for more success

WHEN he actually speaks the words out loud Harry O’Neill seems a little taken back by it. When he reminds all within earshot that Colm Cooper and Eoin Brosnan’s Dr Crokes’ senior careers stretch all the way back to 2000 - 17 years - O’Neill himself seems to need an extra second to let it sink in. Seventeen years and still going strong...

What O’Neill fails to mention is that his own association with the club goes back as far - much further in fact - but the key point is that when Cooper and Brosnan were finding their senior feet in that millennial year, O’Neill was the manager of the Dr Crokes team that won the 2000 county final. In the intervening years the 56-year old hasn’t been too far away. In 2010 and 2011 he was back in the managerial bib, steering the club to to more county championship titles. And last year and this O’Neill remains involved, as selector and spokesman for a management team teeming with experience.

On the one hand it’s easy to see how and why Dr Crokes are back to defend their county title, having won the triple crown - county, province and All-Ireland - in the last 12 months. On the other, it’s reasonable to ask why this group - the club - hasn’t been sated by last March’s All-Ireland Club final win?

”We won Kerry, we won Munster and we won the All-Ireland Club last year so the ambition is to try and retain all three trophies,” O’Neill says, totally aware that he’s stating the obvious. “That’s what you want to do, but like last year we’re taking each one as it comes. Last year the ultimate aim was to get to Croke Park but it wasn’t spoken about after that first meeting (at the start of 2016 when Pat O’Shea took over as manager). The first port of call was the county championship, and that’s where we are at the minute. I’ve always said down the years, being involved with different teams, the Kerry county championship is one of the hardest things to win. All the other teams know you, they’re all trying to put one over on you, and it’s a big big challenge to win here.”

But where is the drive to continue coming from? Having reached the promised land of the All-Ireland Club title after so making failed attempts at the summit, wouldn’t be understandable if the Crokes players had eased off this summer?

“If you go back a couple years when we had been to two or three All-Ireland semi-finals then we did have a drop off. We did fall back and were dumped out of the county championship here. We had no success and I think that was maybe the lean period,” O’Neill offers. “If you look at our team now, how many years are left with that core group, the older guys - Colm Cooper, Eoin Brosnan, Ambrose O’Donovan. There aren’t too many years left in this group as a group so what you’re hoping is that these guys are saying ‘whatever time we’ve left we’re going to give it our best shot’.”

The way the team hasn’t lost a game since that St Patrick’s Day win over Slaughtneil would suggest that everyone remains totally on board with respect to getting the very best out of themselves for however long they can.

Standing in their way of retaining the county title is South Kerry, a divisional set-up that has caused previous Dr Crokes team plenty of trouble and pain over the last decade and a half.

“Are there bogey teams?” O’Neill repeats of an enquiry as to whether or not South Kerry might be one of Dr Crokes. “I don’t know, but we have struggled to beat South Kerry in finals. There hasn’t been a whole lot between the teams in county finals. The law of averages might say we’ll get over the line at some stage and that’s one way of looking at it. It’s something we will have to factor into our preparations, that we have struggled to beat South Kerry in recent times in finals.

“But we have had success. We beat them in Fitzgerald Stadium in the semi-final in 2010. We went down to Cahersiveen and beat them there too. So we have beaten South Kerry in that time. I think it’s five Championship meetings and it’s three (to) two. But the three that they’ve won have been finals. We’d be hoping that our preparation this time might be a bit better and that we’ll be more experienced than we were back in 2005/6 and 2010.”

The fact that Dr Crokes are already guaranteed to be the county’s representative in the Munster Club Championship won’t, according to O’Neill, affect their approach to Sunday’s county final. Collective pride and individual motivations will see to that.

“The fact we’ve already qualified for Munster Championship doesn’t change the dynamic at all. We’re very proud of the fact that we’re in a county final and when you’re in there you want to win it. You’re trying to put the Crokes club up the roll of honour. That’s a huge thing for us, having your name ticked after a county championship in 2017 or whatever year it is.

“It’s brilliant to have the back-up of it. Even going into the West Kerry game in the semi-final we knew we were going to be in the Munster Club because O’Rahillys were out. We were automatically qualified at that stage but it won’t change anything going in the final,” says O’Neill, who admits that it’s a hugely difficult task for the management to pick a starting team on any given day.

“We have a big panel, maybe thirty-one, thirty-two players. All of those are well capable of playing quality football. Take the likes of Jordan Kiely, who was unlucky to get an injury earlier this year, has been out for quite a while, was looking to make the breakthrough into the team this year, and all those guys want to be on the starting fifteen. He’s now back fully fit and that was his first opportunity the last day (against West Kerry), what’s he going to do? He’s not going to go out and not give message to the management team.

The same goes for Paul Clarke - “he’s barely missed one training session all year”

- or Ambrose O’Donovan - “he doesn’t want to be sitting on the bench”.