THE GAME IN 60 SECONDS
IT might have been a different venue than his other two years as minor manager, but the outcome was still the same for Peter Keane in guiding Kerry to their third provincial title as part of this great run of six consecutive successes.
True to his cautious nature, the Cahersiveen native wasn’t getting too carried away about the county’s Minor success story continuing seemingly unabated.
“I suppose you don’t ever look at it as an easy win, the scoreboard might reflect that, but you’re pushing all the time, working hard all the time trying to get things right,” the Minor boss said.
While disappointed in one respect that his side had to respond so early to conceding a goal, Keane was very happy with the factors that led to a thirteen point lead for his side at the break.
“I felt we kicked on well after that and got some very good scores. They showed decent enough composure to get back up the field and not put their heads down and drive on.
“We probably had the advantage of the wind too, which was a help, but we kicked some great scores, I thought. We had only three wides, so we were very happy with where were at half-time.”
Ten different scorers is an impressive stat at first glance, but the Kerry minor boss says that a player not scoring isn’t necessary fatal while he also had mixed feelings on goalkeeper Marc Kelliher being called upon three times to make second-half saves.
“You want all your forwards scoring, you want them all contributing and that’s not to say that if a fella isn’t scoring, that it’s a problem. It’s more important that they are all moving along. Marc made some tremendous saves, but there’ll be flashing lights about why they got those opportunities. It’s something that we’re just going to have to work on.”
Even though Kerry have achieved something only done once by the Kingdom since the Second World War (1946-51) in winning six consecutive Munster Minor titles, Keane reiterated his long held belief that previous success doesn’t guarantee the present wearers of the minor jersey any success.
“Fellas have been on to us about so many in-a-row or whatever, but they’re different teams every year. While, say, last year we’d have had a few residual players from the previous year, this was brand-new because of the drop in the year.
“They’re not thinking about what happened last year because they didn’t have any hand, act or part in it. What you do find is that these fellas want it, you try to put that hunger into them that
MAIN MAN
If Paul O’Shea had remained on the pitch it’s likely he could have got the award but there is no denying how good a campaign Brosna’s Paul Walsh is having in general. Best performer on the opening night in Thurles, he got the official Man-of-the-Match award on Saturday evening with the wing-forward involved in all three Kerry goals and converted the last one.
KEY MOMENT
After getting an early boost with the game’s first goal, you feel Clare needed a few more big moments soon after to go their way in order to have any chance of a surprise. They didn’t and the somewhat fortunate nature of Kerry’s first goal was enough to demoralise them as part of a run of 1-12 without reply for the Kingdom.
TALKING POINT
On a weekend of much discussion and debate about the competitive nature, value or otherwise of provincial competitions, this Minor Final didn’t add anything positive or encouraging to the overall debate. For the third time in four years Kerry have won a provincial decider at a canter and the fact Cork have not been the opposition on those three occasions is arguably a large reason why.
they want to be winning, that’s where you’re guarding against it.”
The full geographical set will be completed for Keane at All-Ireland quarter-final level when Connacht opposition “They are a team that likes to move the ball fast in what they do and you had a pitch and conditions that lent itself to that today. You can’t take that for granted though because you don’t know what weather conditions you might be faced with the next day.”