Feet on the ground as Keane looks to quarters

IT might have been a different venue than his other two years as minor manager, but the outcome was still the same for Peter Keane in guiding Kerry to their third provincial title as part of this great run of six consecutive successes.

True to his cautious nature, the Cahersiveen native wasn’t getting too carried away about the county’s Minor success story continuing seemingly unabated.

“I suppose you don’t ever look at it as an easy win, the scoreboard might reflect that, but you’re pushing all the time, working hard all the time trying to get things right,” the Minor boss said.

While disappointed in one respect that his side had to respond so early to conceding a goal, Keane was very happy with the factors that led to a thirteen point lead for his side at the break.

“I felt we kicked on well after that and got some very good scores. They showed decent enough composure to get back up the field and not put their heads down and drive on.

“We probably had the advantage of the wind too, which was a help, but we kicked some great scores, I thought. We had only three wides, so we were very happy with where were at half-time.”

Ten different scorers is an impressive stat at first glance, but the Kerry minor boss says that a player not scoring isn’t necessary fatal while he also had mixed feelings on goalkeeper Marc Kelliher being called upon three times to make second-half saves.

“You want all your forwards scoring, you want them all contributing and that’s not to say that if a fella isn’t scoring, that it’s a problem. It’s more important that they are all moving along. Marc made some tremendous saves, but there’ll be flashing lights about why they got those opportunities. It’s something that we’re just going to have to work on.”

Even though Kerry have achieved something only done once by the Kingdom since the Second World War (1946-51) in winning six consecutive Munster Minor titles, Keane reiterated his long held belief that previous success doesn’t guarantee the present wearers of the minor jersey any success.

“Fellas have been on to us about so many in-a-row or whatever, but they’re different teams every year. While, say, last year we’d have had a few residual players from the previous year, this was brand-new because of the drop in the year.

“They’re not thinking about what happened last year because they didn’t have any hand, act or part in it. What you do find is that these fellas want it, you try to put that hunger into them that

they want to be winning, that’s where you’re guarding against it.”

The full geographical set will be completed for Keane at All-Ireland quarter-final level when Connacht opposi- tion present Kerry’s next challenge. Detailed analysis will begin now as Connacht are running a Round Robin this year at minor level.

“Now we’ll start to focus on them [Connacht], it’s five weeks away, there was no point focusing on the next step when you could fall at this step. We did know since May that we were in an All-Ireland quarter-final, but it’s about gameby-game and we’re starting a new series now.

“There’s no back doors, everything is do or die from here.”

The County Minor Championship will take some of the focus away from the inter-county set-up in bridging the wait until the end of July, but Keane says that no one is guaranteed their place in the setup on what has happened thus far citing 10 players getting a call up after the conclusion of the County Minor Leagues as an example of the management trying to keep everyone on their toes.

Dr Crokes’ Michael Lenihan was the major inclusion in the starting line-up and selector James Foley says they were pleased to have given him a run-out after an injury in the Paul McGirr Cup Final with St Brendans College back in March prevented him from being involved in the early part of the campaign.

“We’re very happy with the progress Michael has made and how far down the road he is in being able to get a start today. The players themselves know they have to keep the same levels up if they want to be chosen for the next game and what they put into it picks the team just as much as what we decide,” Foley said.

He agreed that conditions played a big part in the winning margin. “They are a team that likes to move the ball fast in what they do and you had a pitch and conditions that lent itself to that today. You can’t take that for granted though because you don’t know what weather conditions you might be faced with the next day.”