Victorious manager O’Reilly hails hard-working and honest group of players

WHILE Michael O’Reilly has guided a second team to a County Under 21 title in four years following his success with Mid Kerry back in 2013, he wasn’t keen for personal plaudits when it came discussing South Kerry’s success last week.

“I found this to be a very honest and hard working group of players for each other both on the field and on the bench. They’ve found themselves in some tough positions during the campaign but kept battling all the time.

“Like the St Kierans game we got a goal before half-time that was a massive boost to us during the second-half. Dingle might have had more star players than us, not that there is anything wrong with having them, but I felt we were a better unit and that showed in the second-half when we got on top,” the victorious South Kerry manager said.

He agreed that the three goals along with Robert Wharton’s performance were big factors in South Kerry’s win and feels last Tuesday night bodes well for the future of football in the area.

“You now have both the Under 21 and Senior titles in South Kerry at the moment and that’s a massive boost for the area with the problems the clubs have had getting numbers.

“I’m delighted for a lot of our players who were in their last year of Under 21 that they managed to be a part of a success like this. The only disappointment I have is that I feel this is a competition that could maybe do with a promotion and publicity at all levels because these are the future stars of Kerry football.

“I expect Dingle to come back stronger next year with the amount of players they still have underage.”

Dingle manager Paul Fitzmaurice had no complaints about the result believing the better team won on the night.

“They managed to get some huge breaks around the middle along with winning the battles that they needed to and it turned the game in their favour. It was a stiff enough breeze to try and get scores from into the town end but that’s not an excuse, South Kerry took their chances when they got them and that’s the reason they won.

“Defensively they have their homework done on our danger men and we hardly got any real goal chances on the night which is testament to their efforts at the back,” he said.

Time is still on the club’s side in terms of getting a first ever Under 21 title with the majority of the panel still underage next year. More immediately however, the correlation between the West Kerry club’s senior and Under 21 sides means that most of the same players will be facing South Kerry again in the Senior County Championship in the not too distant future.

Fitzmaurice agreed that Dingle will have some motivation for that encounter on the back of this result.

“There’s a strong passion by these players to play Championship Football at every level in recent years and playing a County Championship Quarter-Final against the defending champions doesn’t is a massive motivation for us when Kerry do finish up for the year.”