Hurlers must grab their Royal chance for points with both hands

KERRY have two games left in the group phase of this championship and looking at those two fixtures this looks by far and away the easier of the two and, yes, easier is a relative term.

After what happened the last time the Kingdom made the trip to the Royal county, nobody in this neck of the woods will be taking the challenge posed by Nick Fitzgerald’s men for granted.

It’s just that compared to a trip to Dunloy the following weekend to face a Antrim team who have two wins on the board, this Saturday’s trip to Navan to face a side rock bottom after three defeats on-thetrot is the safer bet for Kerry and, make no mistake, Kerry need to get those points on the board.

A defeat to Meath this weekend would leave Kerry tied on points with Meath and below them on headto-head. Having done so well up until now, a defeat on Sunday would have Kerry staring down the barrel of automatic relegation to the Christy Ring Cup.

That’s the sort of pressure Kerry are under this weekend and, while a place in the final is still a possibility, we’d suggest the fear of relegation is much more likely to be on Kerry’s minds this week than the allure of outright success.

“I wouldn’t say it’s more looking down than up,” Kerry boss Fintan O’Connor said on Tuesday afternoon.

“Like ourselves and Laois and Carlow and probably Antrim are all probably looking at taking points off each other. If we win our last two games I think we’ll have a right good chance, but we can’t get ahead of ourselves either and going up to Meath like all the other matches we have to look at and I know it’s a cliché, but it’s one game at a time.

“I think every team can beat every team. I think that Meath proved that against Carlow the last day, they were very unlucky not to get a result so we know how good Carlow are so looking on from that we have to give Meath respect on Saturday and Meath turned us over last year.

“I’m not saying we’re looking down or looking anywhere we’re just looking at Meath on Saturday and trying to get a result and doing the same the following week against Antrim and then after all the games are played we look at where we are.”

Inasmuch as Kerry will be targeting this weekend’s game, the Royals will be seeing it as the perfect opportunity for them to escape the basement position. There’s every chance that a win on Saturday afternoon would see Meath do so on a headto-head basis.

Of course, it would all depend on results elsewhere and Meath, despite losing all their games, do look capable of beating Kerry this weekend. They’ve been putting up some pretty decent scores in all their games and gave Carlow plenty to think about in the last round.,

“I don’t think our lads will be thinking it’s going to be easy because they know what Meath will bring and what they brought last year,” O’Connor says.

“I don’t think there will be a question of taking Meath for granted at all. I do think that Meath are a good side in their own right and as I said at the start of the year anyone can beat anyone else in the league and in the championship and I think that’s proven.

“Meath and ourselves now are fighting for our lives so it’s going to be a real do-or-die contest.”

Earlier in the campaign O’Connor said he didn’t like to label game as must win so for him to call this weekend’s fixture ‘do-or-die’ seems a significant development. With backs to the win we’d expect this Kerry team to deliver.

Verdict: Kerry