Kennelly far from stated after North Kerry triumph

YOU know the old joke? The one about being overnight sensation after twenty years in show business.

There’s a bit of that to Paul Kennelly. For a long time he served in the trenches for little reward. He was the outstanding talent in the little club based in Coolard, half way between Listowel and Lisselton.

He wasn’t the only good footballer they had at their disposal – they’ve always produced good footballers in that neck of the woods – but there was never enough of them, not all at once.

It wasn’t until this present bunch of young Ballydonoghue tyros came through the ranks – dominating the scene at underage level before exploding onto the scene in the North Kerry championship last season – that Kennelly finally began to taste success.

For guys of his generation – Stephen Lonergan, his brother Thomas, Eamon Walsh, Jim Cremin and Martin O’Mahony (a veteran at 32) – the past twelve months are the exception that prove the rule.

That’s probably made it all the sweeter. For younger guys – the Foley brothers, Brian Ó Seanacháin, Jack Gogarty – success is nothing out of the ordinary. Winning at senior level is merely a continuation of their underage success.

We’re not suggesting for a moment that they don’t appreciate it, obviously they do, but for Kennelly and co it probably does mean that little bit more. Gratification delayed is all the sweeter for that very reason.

“Absolutely thrilled yeah,” the Ballydonoghue captain says.

“I was just saying there about thirteen months ago I’d never won a medal for the club and I was playing for ten years, playing since I was seventeen and just thirteen months later I’ve two North Kerry championships, so it’s massive.

“We’ve a very talented bunch of players and hopefully we can drive on from here and do better things.”

There’s an obvious desire now to strike when the iron is hot. Kennelly is still young – just twenty eight with at least another six or seven years of club football ahead of him if he wants it and, of course, if he stays fit – but he’s well aware of how a quickly a career can go by without achieving what you want to.

In this present Ballydonoghue team he senses a unique opportunity to achieve. Groups as talented as this don’t spring up too often. They’ve got the potential to win a county premier junior title we suspect, a suspicion shared by their captain.

“Yeah we do,” he says straightforwardly.

“Unfortunately last year [2017] I think the week beforehand I got injured and then the next thing it was just like a domino effect, about seven of our main lads got injured and we can’t afford to be missing that many players, we’re a small club.

“You saw today when we’ve a full team I think we’re a match for anybody. That’s the one and only goal for next year to win that junior championship. Fact.”

In hindsight Sunday’s victory seems all but a fait accompli. Ballydonoghue were the better side and therefore were always going to win... right? Well for a good twenty minutes of the game it was looking a lot more uncertain. Ballyduff were bossing the game and Ballydonoghue were struggling to find their way into it.

“There was nerves,” Kennelly admits.

“I’m not going to say there wasn’t because we were here three weeks ago against Brosna and we had the wind. We went in at half-time and we’d two goals alright, but we’d no point kicked and I was just thinking ‘here we go again, deja vu now again’.

“Our main man Martin [O’Mahony] in the middle of the field got sent off and I think it actually spurred us on and as you saw there we drove on and there was no looking back.”

The quality of Ballydonoghue’s football shone through in the end. They displayed an admirable desire to keep on going right to the final whistle.

“There was actually five minutes to go there and I realised they have a spare man and you wouldn’t have thought it,” Kennelly continues.

“We looked like the team with the spare man and I think that’s testament to Denis [Lynch] and the training he’s done with us over the last three or four months especially. It’s been unbelievable hard stuff out in Coolard running and you could see it there we just didn’t stop running. We could go for another half.”

That ravenous hunger was on display in the way they won an overwhelming majority of the breaking ball over the course of the game.

“We’re very lucky to have lads like Brian [ Ó Seanacháin] there [on the half-forward line],” Kennelly says.

“But there’s only lads that people wouldn’t know probably because Brian obviously played county. Darragh Sheehy, Jim Cremin, these guys are unbelievable for breaks. Tommy there my brother, Jack Gogarty, Mitch Foley, these fellas are like dogs picking up breaks and you saw it there once we turned the wheel there was no looking back.”

Looking back on the championship as a whole it would seem as though the drawn semi-final – at the same venue – with Brosna was the making of Ballydonoghue’s North Kerry campaign.

“Definitely. We were only playing in fits and starts before that and we just needed a kick up the you know what and once we got it we showed that there was no team to match us.”

There’s no disputing that now.