The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Crokes loss should be to Kerry’s gain as players become available earlier
Paul Brennan says Dr Crokes defeat to Nemo opens up an earlier window of opportunity for some of those players to stake their claim with Kerry
THERE’S no suggestion that anyone involved with the Kerry senior football team will have been cock-a-hoop with the result in Pairc Ui Rinn last Sunday, but the Kerry senior team management wouldn’t be human if they didn’t at least privately acknowledge that Dr Crokes’ ill wind should now blow favourably in their direction.
The bottom line is that having your county champions go into the All-Ireland Club Championship series in February and possibly March isn’t of any benefit to an inter-county manager. And in Kerry when there’s a reasonable chance any given year that three clubs – senior, intermediate and junior – could be playing All-Ireland Club Championship games that overlap with the National League then it becomes counter-productive.
When the 2017 National League commenced at the start of February Dr Crokes were a couple of weeks away from playing an All-Ireland Club semi-final against Dr Crokes, Glenbeigh/Glencar were preparing for an All-Ireland Junior final in mid-February and Kenmare had just been beaten in the All-Ireland Intermediate semi-final the previous weekend. Between Johnny Buckley, Fionn Fitzgerald, Colm Cooper (still a Kerry player at the time), Darran O’Sullivan and Stephen O’Brien, the Kerry management had five players unavailable to them for the first game of the League. The Dr Crokes contingent – including other players that the management might have been interested in calling in – remained off limits until, at best, the final two rounds of the league and the subsequent league final.
One of the contradictions of the scheduling of the All-Ireland Club Championship is that it precludes the very team that should be, in theory at least, feeding several players into a county squad from doing soattheprecisetimewhenthe county team management want to be looking at new players and trying out new things.
To that end one couldn’t blame Eamonn Fitzmaurice from being ever so slightly pleased with last Sunday’s result in Cork, notwithstanding the fact that he, like everyone else in the county, wanted Dr Crokes to successfully defend the Merrigan Cup. This assumption is, of course, predicated on another assumption, that being that Fitzmaurice wants to bring in and work with several Dr Crokes players and see how they might perform in the more rarefied air of National League football on a near weekly basis.
On the basis of what Dr Crokes players are already involved with the Kerry seniors in the last year, and going on what we’ve all seen in the county championship and the Munster Club campaign, it’s reasonable to conclude that there are five or six Dr Crokes players who we should now be seeing to one degree or another in green and gold this spring rather than the black and amber.
If only for his last two performances with his club, Johnny Buckley remains a valuable asset to the Kerry panel. Whether or not he can take a firm hold of a starting jersey – at midfield or half forward – will be down to the player, but his high fielding against Kilmurry-Ibrickane and Nemo Rangers should provide food for thought for the Kerry management.
To that end, Crokes goalkeeper Shane Murphy has shown more than enough in the last four months to suggest he has all the attributes to become Kerry’s answer to Stephen Cluxton.
Gavin White (pictured) hasbeenoneof the stand-out defenders in the county championship, and he wasoneofthe fewCrokes players to is without question; the next part is to see how well he can defend against top class inter-county forwards.
Micheál Burns didn’t have a good day in the Munster Club Final at the weekend but heretoforehehasbeenoneofCrokes’ best forwards this past year. Like club mates Daithí Casey and Brian Looney before him, Burns at least deserves an chance to prove himself at inter-county level over the coming months.
Whether or not the Kerry management decide to retain Fionn Fitzgerald or call in Tony Brosnan are other decisions for them, but at least now the pathway is clear for the county team management to call on whoever they want whenever they want from the county champions, as it should be.
Coming back from Cork on Sunday evening some commentator said on RTÉ Radio that Nemo’s victory over Dr Crokes would be good for Cork football, in particular the senior team, which new manager Ronan McCarthy will be trying to rebuild this spring. The problem there, of course, is an obvious one. McCarthy’s first objective will be to get Cork promoted out of Division 2, but for at least the first three (and probably four) rounds he won’t have the Nemo players available to him, and should Nemo beat Slaughtneil then the Cork management mightn’t see a Nemo player until the last round of the league.
In Cork’s case, Nemo’s club commitment post-Christmas could be more debilitating to their county team than Crokes would be (or has been) to Kerry, but for the players in question it’s another matter.
There’s a sense that while it was his performances in the county championship and beyond that touted Daithi Casey for a Kerry career, it was that very involvement with his club that stymied any real opportunity to stake a claim with Kerry in successive National League campaigns. There were, presumably, other reasons that Casey, for example, never made the breakthrough, but at least now – with a major shake-up of the Kerry panel expected next spring – players like White and Burns and Murphy will have only one master to serve. Obviously those players, and others, would love to have joined a very small group of footballers to have won back-toback All-Ireland Club titles, but equally they would want to win an All-Ireland medal with Kerry.
That first step can now start in January, not April. An ill wind indeed.