O’Callaghan pleased with how Crokes adjusted to Fitzgerald’s sending off
SELECTOR Niall O’Callaghan while expressing delight at Dr Crokes retaining this Senior Club title was keen to talk up Dingle after Sunday’s one-sided final, but had to acknowledge that the Killarney team were simply the better team on the day.
“Dingle are a great club but we just played well today, and the conditions and everything suited, and from Dingle’s point of view I think they just didn’t come out in the second half,” O’Callaghan said after the game. “Defensively we were excellent today, and we have to give credit to our defence. We’re happy with the result because was we were saying during the week Dingle are a formidable team, they’ve seven players on the Kerry team, deservedly so, and I’m glad our experience told in the end.
“When you look at the quality of players that we have and Dingle have inside with Kerry they’re always going to change a game, but as lot of our fellas would have the experience.
“Johnny Buckley in the middle of the field, he’s a big man and he can play. Dingle are a coming club a lot of players on that team are either All-Ireland Colleges or All-Ireland minor winners so it’s not like they’re not good players. It’s just at the moment we’d a good performance and we’re happy enough with it.
Speaking about Fionn Fitzgerald’s red card, O’Callaghan was pleased with how Crokes adjusted.
“We used Brian Looney’s experience, he just dropped a little bit into the half back line so it meant we didn’t have to take a forward off. It actually created more space for us and we’re happy enough when teams kind of drop a player on us and it doesn’t really matter from our point of view who’s in the forward line. Brian came back and he’s cute and he got on a bit of ball for us and he had the legs to get up and down and he always works like two players anyway.
“Colm (Cooper) got on a bit of ball too and just passed it around and created a bit of space and created a few breaks. The likes of Micheal Burns worked his socks off across the line so we were delighted really with his performance.”
Perhaps most pleasing was the return to action of Gavin White,
“He was told from a Kerry point of view that he could only play maybe twenty minutes today so we wanted to do what was right by Gavin and coming on he was really good for us. Young (Michael) Potts as well gave us that push. There’s talent there.
“Over the summer the project is to give these young fellas their head and hopefully by September we’ll be fresh and we’ll go at it again. County Championship is a big competition but it’s nice to have this cushion. It’s a big safety valve with the divisional sides getting stronger.”