The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Systemic problems in defence need fixing fast Forward Thinking
Expert analysis from All-Ireland winner Sean O’Sullivan
KERRY’S 2018 National League campaign came to a pretty subdued end in Omagh on Sunday with a fivepoint defeat to Tyrone.
The game itself was a ‘dead rubber’ with the final result immaterial, but for the mid-table placings of both Kerry and Tyrone.
That said it was another patchy performance from Kerry and I suppose encapsulated their league form overall: mixed.
It would be very easy to spin the ‘it’s only the league’ line and from experience I would somewhat agree that once the first championship ball is kicked what Kerry did or didn’t do in the spring will count for little or nothing.
Getting to and possibly winning the league final doesn’t always guarantee a successful championship in the same way a poor league run doesn’t translate to a poor run in the All-Ireland series, but right now the League form is the barometer.
It’s all we have to go on when looking at our prospects come the summer.
The problem is we have been so inconsistent performance-wise that it’s very hard to analyse where Kerry are, and more importantly where they are going.
Looking through the tables of all divisions the most startling figure has to be our scores conceded. It’s up there with the highest in the country. There is no doubt that it is a major cause of concern and has been for a while now. Our defence has been short a few more experienced players and I am confident that when they return our back line will have a more secure look to it.
They have got a lot of criticism during the campaign, including from myself, but the more I look at it the more I think that our defensive problems are a team issue more than it being down to individuals.
Yes, there have been times when some of our backs have struggled in their man to man battles, but what defender hasn’t?
They are up against quality forwards who can turn, kick and score in the blink of an eye and wouldn’t be playing at this level if they couldn’t.
Kerry’s issue for me runs deeper. We speak a lot about how we struggle when teams run at us, but where are those runners coming from?
Looking back at our games starting with Donegal and ending with Tyrone the question has to be asked, are we giving
our backs enough help further up the field?
Forwards are your first line of defence and need to do whatever they can when the opposition have the ball to slow them down. Are our forwards doing enough of that unseen work to stop overlaps occurring and runners coming right down the centre of our defence?
It seems to me some are and some aren’t. And that’s not good enough. It has to be a collective effort and that requires an amount of hard work. Maybe fitness levels aren’t quite where they need to be yet for our forwards to be able to do that over seventy minutes, but it’s imperative we get that into our game.
We can do it and have been very good at doing it in the past. Johnny Buckley is a prime example. Johnny is a tremendous tackler and works his socks off to press his opponent. Ask any defender and they will tell you it’s the bare minimum they would want from their forward unit.
If you can slow down the opposition building from the back and getting up a head of steam it allows our own backs to get tight and make life as difficult as possible for his forward.
If one forward decides not to do his part of the bargain though the whole system breaks down. For all of David Clifford and Seánie O’Shea’s attributes going forward I’ve been impressed with their attitude when they lose the ball. They chase hard to get it back.
Losing runners has been another problem for us. No matter what team you play now they are well drilled and coached to a very good level. The days of your six backs just marking their men and letting the midfield and forwards do the attacking are long gone.
Half-backs are now the launching pad for most attacks and play almost as forwards. Wing-backs especially will love to take advantage of a wing-forward who doesn’t like carrying out their defensive duties and can really hurt you.
In fact, it can sometimes happen that wing-forwards are given instructions to shut down that wing-back’s attacking influence. A few years back Donnchadh Walsh and Jack McCaffrey had a great battle in Croke Park.
McCaffrey loves to bomb on and get on the end of Dublin moves.
Donnchadh was sent out with the job of negating him, which he did. It was an example of what wing forwards need to be able to do in the modern game.
Attack and defend in equal measure. All too often in the League we switched off in these areas and let runners go. Again it’s something that needs work.
On a positive note the League has been a great learning curve for the players and not just the young guys. The group will have done about five months training at this stage and it’s only when you play competitive games that you know where you are on a personal level.
You start to ask yourself little questions after games. Am I fit enough? Do I need to up my gym work? Could I shed a few pounds? The league is a great place to see these things and gives you the kick up the arse you may need.
The younger players can be very happy with their contributions so far and we will see more of the aforementioned Clifford and O’Shea along with Jason Foley come Championship.
Some of the more seasoned guys still have work to do but time is on their side. The club championship games during April will help bring them on along with a good block of training with Kerry.
So, plenty to ponder after a less than impressive campaign but lots of lessons learned. Sure it’s only the league!
Losing runners has been anoher problem for us... The days of your six backs just marking their men are gone