Four things we learned...

No deficit in hunger

If there was one big question mark over Dr Crokes going into last weekend’s county final it was whether or not they’d have the hunger to match Dingle’s ferocious desire for a first title in seventy years.

On one level you’d have to think that after six titles in eight years Crokes’ desire ought to have been sated to some certain degree... right? Wrong. When they had to Pat O’Shea’s men dug deep, just as they had in the semi-final against Kerins O’Rahillys.

In both the semi-final and the final there were times when it looked like their opponents might have been getting on top of them by winning more than their fair share of the fifty fifty stuff, but come the end of the game Crokes were the ones left standing having put their backs into it when the game was in the melting pot.

Flaherty is Kerry’s best option at sweeper

Kerry have had their struggles with the role of sweeper since Aidan O’Mahony hung up his boots after the 2016 campaign. In two high-profile games in Croke Park Kerry suffered something of a systems failure when trying to implement a sweeper system.

Neither Tom O’Sullivan (against Mayo in 2017) or Peter Crowley (against Galway this year) got to grips with the role, but new Kerry boss Peter Keane would seem to have a ready-made solution should he, on occasion, want to deploy a sweeper in Matthew Flaherty.

The 2014 All Ireland minor winner has been something of a revelation during this year’s championship. Okay it’s not like we didn’t know he was a quality player, but to see him do well as a sweeper certainly made us sit up and take notice. He’s got the positioning, the intelligence and the football to make a success of it at inter-county level.

Dingle don’t have the depth... yet

We said before the match that Dingle would need everything to go their way if they were to triumph on Sunday. Their path to victory was a narrow one and the reason why was simply that they didn’t have enough options or enough depth. That was particularly evident in their attacking play at times. Too much went through Paul Geaney or rather Dingle felt compelled to play too much through Paul Geaney. What he needed was a foil. As it was Crokes could set up to stifle him and in that regard they did a stellar job.

It made for a frustrating afternoon for Dingle and for their talisman. The good news is that this shouldn’t be as much of an issue in the future if Conor Geaney continues his progression and recovery from injury. Injuries did hurt Dingle, they were only able to bring on three subs while Crokes used their full complement. That was huge issue for them and put them at a serious disadvantage.

There’s life after Gooch

Look obviously he’s not gone yet – and he did provide a calming influence when he came on for Gavin O’Shea in the second half – but it’s clear that Colm Cooper is at the winding up phase of his Dr Crokes career, which is not to say that he’s going to be retiring any time soon necessarily, merely to state that he’s no longer their key player. He didn’t start and we wouldn’t expect him to start too many games as the Crokes bid for Munster and All Ireland glory and, yet, Crokes are still moving along serenely. That says something about their development and the plans put in place for Pat O’Shea

For most clubs to lose a player of Gooch’s calibre as a starter – through age or injury or whatever – would be a hammer blow, but not Crokes. For their long suffering rivals that’s kind of scary. The idea that Crokes would be vulnerable in the post-Gooch world seems fanciful now. IN a lot of ways, the story of Dr Crokes’ rise to the top of the Roll of Honour in the County Championship has its roots in the past, nearly three and a half decades ago to precise when they first sought to go on their own in the aftermath of being a part of the County Championship win by Killarney in 1983 as selector Vince Casey explained after last Sunday’s win.

“In 1985 we made a delegation to go on our own in the county championship in 1985, one of our selectors Der Brosnan and Pat’s father Murt O’Shea made it and we were refused.

“We had to step out in ‘85, it was our Centenary in ‘86 so we were allowed in and we never looked back since. It’s just been phenomenal, it took us 77 years to win our fifth title.

“This bunch of players are unbelievable, the dedication, the commitment, they put in. It’s great for Colm Cooper and Eoin Brosnan they have the most county championships medals ever.

“Over the last two decades they have been to the forefront of leadership in the team and you see to them what it means to them even after. That’s why this final was more special than any other final,” Casey said afterwards.

The final score was a little more comfortable than the game felt like towards the finish and it was only with Gavin White’s goal that they could relax according to Casey.

“Dingle have shown incredible commitment. We were four points up and they came back to bring it to two points. We were worried on the sideline because you are always worried about a goal, but they showed patience, they were trying to show points.

“Paul [Geaney] had a narrow wide from a free that would have brought it back to one point. The only time we started to feel the game was coming to it was the goal, that was when it was 14 v 15. We turned it over and moved at pace and thankfully our guys made the right decisions and it was easy for Gavin to finish,” the Crokes selector said.

Casey expressed his hope that White would go on to be one of the new leaders for Crokes in a new generation starting to emerge as he spoke of the structures that allowed White along with several youngsters to start emerging now.

“Pat O’Shea put in place a coaching structure in the ‘90s, when we won in 1992. A lot of people got involved, Edmund [O’Sullivan] has been phenomenally involved with most of these players over the last six years.

“With the minor teams he has been bringing through the David Shaws, Micheál Burns the next generation. Edmund would have a very strong link with them and look we have great people involved in the club.”

“Today is about the players and a whole lot of individuals who have contributed for these guys when they started at six, seven or eight and continuing the way up. It is very easy for Minors that when they don’t get a game at 19 to drift off.

“Micheál Burns is now 22/23 it’s taken a while for the likes of him to establish themselves on the team and thankfully they’ve been patient. David Shaw had won two Corn Uí Mhuirí’s with the Sem and he was still not starting until this year.

“They are the future, but they are also the present because we wouldn’t be as a strong if we didn’t have them. It’s the competition within the squad and the competition training wise that has been the secret of our success,” Casey feels.

Overall many will reflect on the loss to Kerins O’Rahillys in Round 2A as being a turning point for the club in general and Casey felt that the club brought it to a different level after such a loss.

“They were the better team on the day, we stopped playing and they took advantage of it. In fairness to O’Rahillys and Micheál Quirke they are a very good side and they have put together a very good structure.

“They came at us, we lost, and did we learn from it? Absolutely, and I suppose that was a time when the players hunger was questioned by various people and they’ve given this response numerous times when they’ve been asked about hunger.

“They moved on from there and brought it to another level. The other side of it is Gavin White was only coming back from injury at that time and Tony Brosnan was injured as well so we had to inject some youth into the team,” he said.