Culture of excellence is well established

Jason O’Connor reflects on the Kingdom’s sixth successive Munster minor football championship title

ALTOUGH one point shy of matching what the Kerry Under 20s registered the previous evening in Tralee against Waterford, the Kerry Minors showed there is much the same desire to match what their immediate predecessors have done in their own time as minors themselves.

The only real sense of contest was in the first quarter before the expected procession started in earnest. To be fair to this Clare side, there appeared to be more drive about them that the 2017 class who pretty much threw in the towel early in Killarney twelve months ago.

Far too many things had to go their way however for a shock result to accrue as they could not cope with point after point when Kerry got their early wake-up call from Thomas Kelly’s goal.

What was more striking about a run of 1-12 was that it was not all centred around a figure head like David Clifford last year in Fitzgerald Stadium.

This time it was all about a more collective effort with the amount of different players that scored and, while Paul Walsh was the stand-out performer in general, Clifford’s first cousin and current team captain Paul O’Shea gave a glimpse of the promise that has been spoken about him by more seasoned underage observers.

Given a bit more freedom to attack than his role in the win over Cork, O’Shea looked very much at ease in imposing himself on the game until injury forced him off.

Walsh has been Kerry’s best performer in the Munster campaign over the course of the three games, as while he probably did not mean for the two goals that Dylan Geaney scored to be converted in the way they were, there is a good ability to find a man for a score as much as take one himself.

The man he picked out for the pass that won the nerve-racking encounter with Cork, Jack O’Connor of Beaufort, scored Kerry’s very first point on Saturday after getting the very last score in the previous game but to have a double digit total in terms of scorers is something to enthuse any side at any level in Gaelic football.

The Kerry defence might not have been under the microscope as much as they were against Cork but the fact they were opened up for three goalscoring chances did not escape Peter Keane’s thoughts after the game.

There never is an ideal time to find out that work needs to be done in any given area but such attention being required arising out of last Saturday might be no