Feet firmly on the ground – Ó Cinnéide

WE asked it half tongue in cheek. Such was the impressive nature of the semi-final victory over St Marys, could it be possible that things were going too well? After a twelve point victory in the semi-final had they peaked too soon?

“If you were watching us the last day against Annasaul you wouldn’t be saying we were playing too well,” An Ghaeltacht selector Dara Ó Cinnéide explained.

“We were very lucky in the West Kerry championship last Sunday. Could’ve, should’ve been beaten, scraped through that one. It was a timely reminder, the time of year that’s there, that championship football is very different to league and league football is where we’ve been winning matches.

“We beat St Marys in a semi-final, we won four championship matches to take us to a semi-final, but league is where our form has been. I wouldn’t be concerned, we did get a good gut-check against Annascaul last Sunday.”

The challenge Templenoe pose will be formidable and everybody involved in the club out west knows it. After all they came a cropper at their hands at the semi-final stage in 2016.

“They beat us that day and they deserved to beat us and I think there were a few players that day that they didn’t have then that they will have the next day,” the 2004 All Ireland winning captain said.

“They’re an ambitious team like ourselves. They remind me a lot of ourselves. A rural team with a good crop of young lads around the same age and aiming for the same thing.

“They’ve got pace and they probably no more than ourselves are in an era where they need to make hay with this group of players that they have. It’s a similar story that both teams have coming into the final, which is good.

“They went on to the final last year, but it was after the county final and obviously there was a bit of a downer there. We were disappointed to lose to them last year so there’s an element of that feeding in to next Sunday.”

The big plus – and the reason so many people have them installed as favourites for this weekend – is that An Ghaeltacht have improved so much in the last twelve months. “We’re making progress,” the selector admits. “I think the progress has been incremental. A lot of work has been done. The group is just a year older. They’re making definite progress, they’re happy, they’re enjoying their football I hope. “They’re playing well with the different grades. Six of them were in with the Kerry juniors this year and that gave them a bit of a boost. One or two of them were there or thereabouts with the Kerry senior panel, no more than the Templenoe lads, so that was good. “This is what we wanted to get to all along, the target since the start of the year after the disappointment of losing last year. We’d be happy enough with games there throughout the league, the structure in Kerry has worked well clubs like us who don’t have too many players in with the Kerry seniors and the Kerry juniors is quite condensed. So we played our eleven county league games this year and treated them all as an event in itself.”

Sunday represents the club’s first county final since they won the senior title in 2003. The feel-good factor is back out west no question. Not that it has happened overnight, not that a huge amount of work hasn’t been undertaken to make it happen. “There’s been a lot of work put in at schools level and underage level,” Ó Cinnéide explains. “The school won their two Hogan Cups and the Gaeltacht would have back-boned those teams and we’re trying to hold onto as many of them as we can and keep them involved, keep them playing football and the group that we have they’re an ambitious bunch, they ambitious for the club, they’re ambitious for themselves all up along.

“Even from speaking to Eamonn Fitzmaurice at the school he would have thought that’s the one thing that springs out about them they are ambitious and they’re model citizens off the field in terms of how they prepare for games compared to when I was playing! “They stick to the programme, they’re serious about their nutrition and all that craic. They’re good lads and I do hope they’re enjoying it.”