The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Defence cost title defence
Paul Brennan puts Kerry’s failure to defend their League title down to an inability or unwillingness to embrace a proper defensive system across the whole team
AND so endeth the lesson... for now. And a tough lesson it was at times. But a necessary one. It was unlikely – improbable even – that Kerry were going to successfully defend their National League title given what needed to be done, vis-a-vis the introduction of several young, novice players to senior inter-county football but, nevertheless, let’s look at a few statistics.
Three wins from seven games – just the one on the road from four – for a final total of six points from a possible 14 and a fifth place finish in the Division standings.
Three goals and 105 points scored against 10 goals and 98 points conceded, for a scoring difference of -14. Those 10 goals conceded were spread over six games, which translates to one clean sheet, in terms of goals, over the campaign. The three goals in the ‘for’ column were scored by the first week of February, which translates to the last five games – or about 370 minutes – with the umpire on green flag duty not being troubled by a Kerry player.
Of the team’s 105 points scored just under one third (31.4%) were from free kicks (31) and ‘45s (2).
Kerry’s biggest winning margin was the four-point win over the team every other team beat, Kildare, with the other two victories being won by one and three-point margins. The biggest defeat was the 12-point beating from Dublin, with the others being five, three and two-point losses.
Some more figures: Having presented the week before the start of the League a list of 19 players who were unavailable on a short, medium or long-term basis due to injury, an extended rest period or other reasons, the management still used 37 players by the end of the League, using, of course, several of those 19 who were not available for the Donegal game on January 28.
Thirty-one players started a
game, six men played five or more full games, and Jason Foley was involved in every minute of League football Kerry played this year.
Make what you will of all that, and, yes, there is also a danger in presenting raw statistics and numbers in sport without context. Maybe Kerry’s League campaign could be presented or summed up another way. Beat Donegal by a point, but could easily have been beaten by a point or two. Absolutely deserved to beat Mayo in Castlebar with their best performance of the campaign. A slow start and sloppy first half cost them dear against Monaghan in a game they could have dug out a draw, even a win. Looked disjointed against a well-drilled Galway in Tralee, but in the context of what Galway have done in this League it wasn’t the worst three-point defeat. Beaten by Dublin in what was, in all honesty, a flattering 12-point loss, that left Seán O’Shea with a League-ending injury. Beat the division’s whipping boys, Kildare, in Tralee by four points in a game both teams absolutely needed to win. Ended with a dead rubber visit to Omagh that was never going to see sparks flying, but were made to look ordinary and porous by a more focussed Tyrone. Harsh? Not really. Éamonn Fitzmaurice said in Omagh on Sunday that there was good and bad from his team across the seven games, but winning just three and considering elements of the performances means there is plenty of work to be done before the Munster Championship starts 10 weeks out from last Sunday.
And the main areas of that work? Getting a read from plenty of people who have watched most, if not all of Kerry’s seven games, the main area of concern is the defence. The three goals scored is far less an issue than the 10 goals – and numerous other goal chances – conceded. Maybe people feel that once David Clifford gets fully bedded in that more goals will come through him, or that James O’Donoghue or Kieran Donaghy will be goal makers or takers come the summer or that Paul Geaney, who showed mixed form this spring, will discover his penchant for scoring goals later in the year.
That confidence simply is not there with regard to the defence. As recent as last Sunday in Omagh it was Tyrone who created all the goal chances: two decent chances just before the interval, winning a penalty (which was missed) and scoring the game’s only goal, with Niall Morgan barely having a meaningful save to make from Kerry. It might seem pointless to talk of ‘could have’ and ‘should have’ with regard to what goals a team did or didn’t score, but the reality is that every team with the exception of Kildare scored a goal against Kerry and also created really clear-cut chances that were either missed by poor execution by the attacking player or the need for a really smart save from either Shane Murphy or Brian Kelly.
“When you win three games and lose four there’s load to work on,” Fitzmaurice said last Sunday, “but we’re in a positive place, we’re happy with what we got out of the League.”
Hot-housing some new players has, indeed, been a positive, but the League title was relinquished because of systemic problems and inadequacies in the defence, and that doesn’t necessarily start and stop with the six backs and the goalkeeper.
Defence in the modern game isn’t about jersey numbers 1 to 7; it’s a mindset and team-wide system that Kerry don’t seem to have figured out yet.
To pull up that old American Football adage again, offence wins games but defence wins Championships. Draw your own conclusion from that for the summerahead.