Kerry v Dublin: Templenoe’s Morley moves into focus

Tadhg Morley’s rapid elevation to the starting fifteen caught at lot of people by surprise. Given his pedigree it shouldn’t have, writes Damian Stack

IT was always going to be him. After all he was first in line. The elder statesman of the team. Once it happened we too could see that. Before it happened, we’ll gladly admit, we weren’t so sure.

The focus then was on others. On guys operating at the other end of the pitch. On the guys flashing points over the bar and not on him down the other end doing the comparatively unglamorous work of defence.

If a Templenoe man was going to make the breakthrough this summer, we surmised after their stunning performance in the All Ireland Junior Club Championship final, it was most likely to be Killian Spillane. He carried himself as you’d imagine a Kerry footballer should. With confidence and a little bit of swagger.

In Croke Park finals – minor, junior and All Ireland club – young Spillane caught the eye, captured the imagination. His surname, understandably, carried a certain cache. Rather foolishly we focused on his claim to a Kerry jersey before we did his club captain’s.

It wasn’t so much that we didn’t rate Tadhg Morley as a footballer – he clearly had talent. It was just that usual bias towards forward play. Far too often the guy who scores the most walks away with the man of the match bauble.

Morley’s emergence caught us by surprise, when it really shouldn’t have done. He was the glue that held that Templenoe team together, bringing a calm authority, an aggression and a determination to a side known more for its style. What inter-county manager wouldn’t want that in his side?

Our expectations too were probably tempered by the fact Morley hadn’t played a game in the league. Templenoe’s run to Croke Park militated against that to a greater or lesser extent.

When he rocked up to Fitzgerald Stadium on June 12 with the number seven on his back, it seemed a throw-back to bygone days. Morley – and Brian Ó Beaglaoich too it must be said – was that most old fashioned of things: a bolter.

Notions, long in-grained, of what you had to do to get a championship start were challenged. He played no league game. He had no collective formal pre-season training of the type we’ve come to consider de rigueur.

Over the following forty six minutes, before he was replaced by Marc Ó Sé, Morley didn’t seem to be unduly suffering from a lack of fitness. Not a bit of it. He was up to the pace of the game straight away.

His substitution was in no way a negative comment on his fitness or performance. He kept a tight rein on Jamie Malone. He carried effectively. Again this should come as absolutely no surprise. Not if you know what kind of guy Tadhg Morley is.

“He’s a fella you’d meet anywhere, any time, it could be Christmas Day and he’d be watching his diet,” his club manager Mike Crowley explains.

“People have probably been surprised how he’s slotted in without the pre-season training, but Tadhg has been doing his pre-season training for the last five years. He’s got a regime, a very focused young fella.”

Crowley knows Morley better than most. Theirs is a relationship that goes back a long way. It pre-dates Templenoe’s marvellous ascent through the divisions of the county league, from Division 5 to Division 1.

It pre-dates Templenoe’s journey from the county novice championship to the steps of the Hogan Stand. Crowley first coached Morley at Under 12 level and even then, at that early stage, it was clear Templenoe had a very special talent on their hands.

He was, Crowley contends, “a step above the rest of them”. Intriguingly, given the player we see today, Morley’s talents at that stage found their expression in the forwards.

“He had that ability, especially as a young fella,” Crowley continues.

“Underage he was always a forward, mostly full-forward. He was gifted off both legs, a very natural forward. Now you didn’t see the aggression and the back play, that was something which camelater.

“We probably doubted to a certain degree why they were playing him in the backs, but since then we’ve played him in the backs all along because he prefers that position.

“He still wouldn’t make a bad forward, let’s be honest about it!”

The transition to defensive general from free-scoring forward – “he was nearly a scoring machine for us,” Crowley says – was not gradual evolution. It came about pretty much overnight and all because one man saw in him something that others didn’t.

“From the development squads up I’d have been watching him,” Pat O’Driscoll, who was Morley’s Kerry minor manager in 2010, says.

“He was always a wing-forward and I just thought I saw some sort of defensive qualities. He reminded me of a young Seamus Moynihan. He had great positional sense, he’d never waste a ball, very tidy, always in the right place and a great attitude. He’s very steady.

“I got vilified for putting him in full-back. We had a problem in the full-back line and I put him in at full-back and I thought he was an obvious choice in there – almost like Seamus Moynihan when Kerry were struggling – but I just felt this fella could play anywhere.

“Myself and the selectors we said, ‘look we’ll have a go, we’ve nothing to lose. This fella is a serious footballer, he’s got pace, he has great positional sense, he has it all’. Half the county then, when we were beaten and knocked out were saying ‘Jesus where were we going, sure he never played in the backs in his life’ and he hasn’t come out of the backs since.

“I just think a good footballer can play anywhere. He definitely has all those qualities.”

More important even than his raw ability as a footballer, what marked Morley out for O’Driscoll as a potential full-back was his attitude, his unflappability. Many guys that age might react poorly to being asked to play a role they were unfamiliar with, especially when that role is full-back and you’ve made your name as a forward.

Not Morley. He’s about as far from a prima donna as you can get. His response to O’Driscoll said it all – “I’d play on top of the crossbar for you, I don’t care,” is how O’Driscoll recounts it.

The Ardfert man gave him the assurances he needed, told him he’d be given time, given games and given the type of coaching required to make the move from front to back. Evidently it worked.

Liam Brosnan, football analyst on Radio Kerry’s Terrace Talk and a man immersed in the

Kerry development squads, has been a fan of Morley’s from an early stage, especially since that minor campaign of 2010.

“Even at minor level he showed fantastic ability and aggression,” Brosnan says.

“He always came across to me as a leader, even at a very young age. That showed as well with Templenoe last year and this year. When he was captain last year [with Templenoe] even from his speeches if you listened to them, you’d have known he was well able to talk.

“He has the leadership qualities – that’s a lot of it. I personally do think that if you are hoping to be an inter-county player you’re going to have to have strong qualities like that. Inter-county football is not for the faint-hearted.

“Even at minor level he always stood out as a leader, he’d always catch your eye.”

So far, not unreasonably, Morley’s performances have been of the steady as she goes variety. There are moments for sure when he powers on purposely, but generally speaking it’s been a safety first approach. A sort of football Hippocratic Oath.

Primum non nocere. First do no harm.

Given his underage pedigree as a marquee forward, Morley has the potential to be an attacking half back in the mould of a Tomás Ó Sé or a Lee Keegan. Sooner rather than later that will become evident, according to Mike Crowley.

“From what I’ve seen of him at inter-county level, he’s coming into the team and he hasn’t expressed himself yet. We play him at full-back and lot of the time you’d see him popping up for a score even from full-back, so he has that naturally attacking instinct in him.”

Could we see that as early as Sunday? To down the Sky-Blues, Kerry will need more than a safety first approach. They’ll need to be at it from the off. They’ll need to get in Dublin faces.

“From Clare and Tipp it’s a big step up the next day,” O’Driscoll says.

“Paul Flynn or Diarmuid Connolly is gonna be a huge step up. It’s going to be a sink or swim kind of situation. It’s going to be a big examination.”

There is a chance, of course, that Morley might not make the side for the game. We think that unlikely, even if we can’t rule it out. Eamonn Fitzmaurice is said to have been trying everything and anything this past couple of weeks.

Different combinations of players, different tactical approaches. That Bryan Sheehan in goal rumour may or may not be true, but it is indicative of a certain flux. Just where Morley will find himself when the music stops is impossible to say.

“I think myself it’s going to be between himself and [Brian] Ó Beaglaoich out on the wing,” Liam Brosnan says.

“He’s done nothing wrong the last couple of games. It’d be kind of a shame, more of a tactical thing, if they don’t start him. It’s not that he’s done anything wrong. He’s got all the attributes of a good half-back.

“He’s tenacious, he’s fast, he’s strong, he’s not afraid to go forward. I think he’s definitely going to be a star in the coming years. Regardless of what happens on Sunday, he’s going to be one of our mainstays in the next couple of years.”

And that’s the rub right there. Morley won’t be going anywhere any time soon. He’s the first Templenoe man to wear the green and gold at senior championship level since brothers Tom and Pat Spillane did in the 1991 All Ireland semi-final.

“It was a massive occasion for the club,” Crowley says of Morley’s emergence.

“It’s a great honour for the club, but Tadhg knows when he comes back to the club he’s one of fifteen. He’s grounded. We don’t believe in making heroes down here, but don’t get me wrong it’s a massive honour.

“He’s had his knock backs, but he’s come good. It’s great for his mother and uncles and things like that to see him at that stage, it’s great. No matter what club you are it’s a massive achievement to have a player on the inter-county team.”

Morley’s elevation is recognition of the great work being done by the little club overlooking Kenmare Bay. He’s the first of their new generation to make that breakthrough. He’s unlikely to be the last.

Tadhg Morley is pathfinder and trailblazer.

Paul Flynn or Diarmuid Connolly, it’s going to be a sink or swim kind of situation – Pat O’Driscoll

Photo by Brendan Moran / Sportsfile