Kerry’s National League Report Card

HIGH POINT

THE Wednesday after the first round game against Donegal The Kerryman carried the headline ‘Youngsters impress on debuts’ on the front page of our sports section. “Early days yet and the concession of 3-14 should sound a cautionary not, but Kerry got the defence of their National League title off to the ideal start with a win over Donegal on a day that saw eight players make their senior debut for the Kingdom” ran the first paragraph, and those last nine words probably sum up Kerry’s League. With so much winter talk about the need to really start stitching players from those four All-Ireland winning minor teams into the fabric of the senior team, those eight new faces against Donegal was the first step towards a brave new team.

One of those debutants was Seán O’Shea and his contribution of seven points, including three from play, was a particular high point of not just the game against Donegal but the entire campaign. However, given how much had been written and spoken about David Clifford since the previous September’s All-Ireland minor final, his first senior score – a 24th minute converted free after being fouled himself – heralded his arrival as a senior footballer, but also went a small way to dampening down the expectations and allowing the Fossa teenager to just get on with the job.

LOW POINT

WITHOUT question it was the 12-point defeat to Dublin in Round 4. Dress it up whatever way you want, but that result and performance will have left all concerned with Kerry smarting, regardless of them, as Éamonn Fitzmaurice said, “getting back up on the horse” the following week to beat Kildare. We cautioned in our match preview that Dublin could view this fixture as a real opportunity to put a spoke in the wheel of Kerry’s spring progress with respect to the younger players coming through, and the All-Ireland champions left no one in any doubt on March 3 how wide the gulf between themselves and Kerry still is. Having lived with Dublin for the first half, Jim Gavin’s team quite easily moved through the gears in the third quarter and Kerry had no response. By the end of the game the few Kerry supporters left in Croke Park were watching through splayed fingers, and whatever about the mitigating circumstances of it being such an inexperienced Kerry team, and that no one expected miracles in the spring time, this was – again in Fitzmaurice’s words – “a chastening” defeat for the defending League champions who effectively gave up their title on the back of this loss.

STAND-OUT PERFORMERS

ALTHOUGH Kerry tried to go with a fairly settled team through the campaign there was, inevitably, a good deal of flux with regard to starting and finishing selections. For the first three games Paul Murphy was – by a distance – Kerry’s strongest performer, showing great leadership within the team and playing some outstanding football. Shane Enright also settled into being his usual dependable self, while Paul Geaney had his moments leading the attack from full-forward.

Of the newer faces in action Ronan Shanahan, Micheál Burns, David Clifford and Gavin Crowley (before he got injured) looked assured and delivered positively for the most part. However, Seán O’Shea looked t the manor born from the first game against Donegal until he got injured just before half time in the Dublin fixture.

NEW BLOOD

WE have touched on it already, but this 2018 campaign has been notable for the amount of young players making their senior Kerry debut and for the amount of game time they have been given. It should be said that quite a number of older, more senior players such as Kieran Donaghy, David Moran, Anthony Maher, Donnchadh Walsh, Darran O’Sullivan and Johnny Buckley were unavailable for much of the campaign, but it’s reasonable to believe that a lot of new faces were going to get their opportunity anyway. Most of the pre-season talk was about David Clifford and Seán O’Shea (pictured) stepping up to this level, but goalkeeper Shane Murphy, full-back Jason Foley, Éanna Ó Conchúir, Micheál Burns and Barry O’Sullivan are a few of the others who have see a lot of game time, and who have acquitted themselves quite well overall. It could be argued that at times there was too much inexperience on the field together – we’re thinking of the Galway game when Kerry had Foley, Jack Barry, Barry O’Sullivan, Burns, O’Shea, Clifford, Matthew Flaherty, Tom O’Sullivan and Éanna Ó Conchúir on the field at the same time, going into the final quarter. Gavin Crowley looked every bit a senior player in the two games he played before picking up an injury while Dáithí Casey, though a little more senior in years, has made an important contribution when introduced as a substitute.

MANAGEMENT’S PERFORMANCE

THE defending League champions had effectively relinquished the title after five rounds, and with the buck stopping at the management that’s a black mark against the sideline. There has also been some criticism for the style of play Kerry have played, with some supporters a little disillusioned as to what exactly the game plan is in games.

Certainly there looked to be little structure to the team or method in the play for a lot of the Galway and Dublin games, and whether it’s a case that the team is being set up poorly or the players aren’t carrying out their instruction message, either way that rests at the management’s feet. The concession of 10 goals – and the joint-second highest total score conceded across all four divisions – is a fairly damning indictment of the collective defence first and foremost, but the management have to accept responsibility for acting – or not – to redress those problems during matches.

Where credit is due is with regard to giving so many players an opportunity in this League, and given the amount of inexperienced players on show in all the games, winning four games and securing Division One status with a game in hand should, in the circumstances, be seen as a productive campaign.

LONG-TERM VIEW

AS always it’s all about the Championship, and with that in mind there shouldn’t be too much disquiet about a fairly tame surrender of the League title. The crucial goal of this National League was to start to integrate some of those recent minors into the panel at least, and on the evidence of what we’ve seen since January 28 – and notwithstanding the 10-week hiatus until the Munster SFC semi-final – it looks like there will be three to five Championship debuts handed out on June 2 and possibly up to four or five Championship regulars this year that weren’t involved at all last year.

Those five are Shane Murphy, Jason Foley, Micheál Burns, Seán O’Shea and David Clifford and it would represent a significant shake up of the old order. And on the evidence of what we’ve seen in this campaign Éanna Ó Conchuir and Dáithí Casey shouldn’t be too far away from significant Championship action, at least in the Munster edition. Quite who misses out is another matter, but suffice to say that those players returning later to the action will have their work cut at over the next 10 weeks to stake their claim for starting jerseys.

David Moran, Tadhg Morley, Johnny Buckley, Mark Griffin, Donnchadh Walsh, Darran O’Sullivan and Kieran Donaghy have plenty of catching up to do, not to mind Anthony Maher and James O’Donoghue who have been blighted with injury problems all spring. Maher’s season hangs in the balance with a stubborn groin injury, while O’Donoghue saw seven minutes of action against Donegal before coming off with a calf injury and the Legion man hasn’t been seen since.

If the League past has been the shortterm project and the Championship ahead is the medium-term part, then the long-term surely extends over the next two and half years: the three-year plan Fitzmaurice spoke about at the start of the year.

So far so underway. We await with interest.