Clifford almost ready while O’Donoghue is being minded
IN the end, Kerry were made to sweat more than they should have done before they finally dismissed the plucky challenge of Meath on Sunday, but manager Peter Keane had always been expecting a titanic battle from the Royal county.
“It was a struggle. We went up to Navan last year in the Super 8s and we struggled enough against them. We beat them by ten points in the end, but it didn’t feel like that,” he said.
“Meath are a good team, well managed, well structured, they fought well for everything they got. They are no bad team. I know they’re in a situation where they’ve lost four games, but there wasn’t much in them. Were people coming here expecting us to beat these fellas by 20 points? I certainly didn’t come to the game thinking that.”
The Kingdom bainisteoir admitted that the early unanswered 1-5 burst of scores in the opening quarter may well have given his charges a false sense of security.
“Maybe there was a bit of flatness there. Did ye feel that way watching it? But it felt that way to me. I thought at different stages that different players played very, very well. But we probably just didn’t do it collectively, all at the same time.”
Keane was satisfied with the senior inter-county debut of Dr Crokes’ forward David Shaw, and pin-pointed the second half arrivals off the bench of Tommy Walsh and Dara Moynihan as adding the hitherto-lacking intensity to Kerry’s second half performance.
“David got a couple of points. Ye keep telling us that we’ve got good forwards, so we’ve got to put them in and see how they’re at and do they match up. Tony (Brosnan) only got a couple of minutes in Edendork two weeks ago. He got on again today, okay he got a black card, we won’t say it’s unfortunate because he did appear to trip him from where I was at, but he got a bit more time on the field.
“I did say it was a bit flat, there was a bit of energy required, and you even saw from the stand, there was energy when the two boys came in, Tommy in particular. Tommy caught a couple of great balls and contributed greatly, which was what he had done against Dublin, and he did very well against Galway when he came on.”
On Kerry conceding two goals, and needing goalkeeper Brian Kelly to prevent two others, the Kerry boss stressed that “you don’t want to be conceding goals. That’s something we’re obviously going to have to work on.”
He also addressed the growing perception that such a talented Kingdom attack are not raising enough green flags themselves.
“Sure, wouldn’t you love to be getting two goals? So would I. What did we score, 1-19. What did we score the first day against Dublin, 1-19. What did we score against Galway, 1-15. We are getting scores, we are creating a lot of scores,” he said.
“If you’re playing a team with good forwards, what’s the opposition going to do? They’re going to shut you down, so you don’t create goal scoring chances. We did appear to get a lot of scores from frees, so obviously we are getting fouled a lot too.”
Despite the terrible weather all over the country, Keane was full of praise for the Fitzgerald Stadium surface, where four games were played over the weekend.
“It was excellent. It’s a credit to Dan and John and John Joe and Mike and all the fellas around the stadium. Did someone tell me today that the ladies game in Cork was called off. That they had no field. Two games yesterday, two games today, sure that’s fantastic here.”
In advance of the weekend’s trip to Castlebar, the Kerry manager doesn’t expect James O’Donoghue to be available, but Gavin Crowley will be back after missing the Meath game.
“We’re minding James, it’s player management. If you keep playing the same fellas, would Shaw have played today? Would he have made his debut and got two points? Or would Tony Brosnan have got some few minutes out on the pitch? Would Tommy Walsh have been coming on?” Jack Sherwood ( pictured) is a couple of weeks away from returning from injury, while Keane also addressed the situation with Paudie Clifford, who supporters have been eagerly awaiting to see at inter-county senior level.
“Paudie came in injured, and he’s trying to recover. It’s one thing to be injured and, just because your injury is sorted, it could take five, six, seven weeks of training to get up to the level of where you’re at. And he hasn’t been in here before, so it might take him that little bit longer. He’s training, he was training this morning, and it’s just a question of ‘is he ready for it?’” he added.
Despite losing their fourth consecutive top flight contest, Meath manager Andy McEntee was proud of his side’s display.
“I thought it was a fantastic performance. We were definitely slow out of the blocks but, from then on, we certainly gave as much as we got. I don’t think anybody could complain about our ability and about the character that the fellas showed,” he said.
“You’re playing the best teams in the country, week in, week out. While it is disappointing, it is frustrating, it’s where we want to be. We are testing new fellas all the time and, by and large, a lot of them are coming through it with a bit of credibility.”
On the two black cards issued to Cillian O’Sullivan and Donal Keogan in the first half, McEntee was visibly annoyed at the situation.
“It seems to me that, since we made an issue of some black cards that weren’t given against Tyrone, we’re on the receiving end of it. Maybe it’s just coincidence and maybe I’m just being paranoid. But, just because I’m paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you!”