The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
‘Pleased enough’ Keane not getting carried away after a near perfect start
IT really couldn’t have gone much better for Peter Keane and for this new era of Kerry football.
It was close to a perfect start. Not only had Kerry won, they’d won well. They won while giving four players their senior inter-county debuts. They won a battle. They dogged it out. They looked strong and tactically aware.
That being the case, you kinda half expected Peter Keane to barrel into the press room with a big grin on his face, bowled over and cock-a-hoop. Except of course that’s not quite the Cahersiveen man’s style.
You ask him if he was pleased by what he saw and he replies that he was “pleased enough”. There’s no getting carried away here. Nor, of course, should there be. The new Kerry manager is clever enough to know no silverware is ever handed out in the month of January. For now pleased enough will do very nicely indeed.
“Everyone will tell you, you should try and win your home games,” he continues.
“It was an exceptionally difficult opening one to have, but all the home games are going to be difficult this year and the away ones won’t be bloody easy either, but it was a win and we’ll take it and we’ll go away and see if we find a driver to go to Cavan next Sunday.”
It’s probably in his interests too to play things down. You put it to him that the two points takes some of the pressure off.
“Was there pressure before it?” he responds quizzically.
“Yerra look if I was here and we’d lost I wouldn’t be overly concerned. I’m here and we’ve won and I’m not overly concerned or excited either which way. It’s a process – I hate that word – but you’re trying to build something, so today is the first step on that and that’s the way I’d look at that.”
Sensible stuff from a sensible man. He knows how quickly the denizens of the Kingdom can get carried away, one way or another. Supporters don’t really do stoicism all that well as they get swept up in the romance of it all.
As manager he doesn’t have the luxury. There were signs though about just how excited he might have been beneath the calm exterior. When asked about the performances of his debuants, he was far more effusive.
“I thought they did very well,” he says. “Gavin O’Brien got in and that’s what? Four fellas making there debut and I think we tried to get Graham O’Sullivan on there in the end. I think when I spoke to ye at an earlier stage Kerry had seven fellas that had debuts last year and I’d indicated that more fellas would be debuting this year and that’s effectively eleven fellas who have played for Kerry in the last twelve months for the first time.”
You kind of get the sense too that he’s being cautious with the younger players who have Sigerson Cup commitments.
“It’s busy,” he says.
“It’s crazy without any Sigerson we’ve three games in thirteen days, which is a big ask for amateurs no matter what we do about it and going up the country and we’ve got the IT involved and they’re playing this Wednesday and the following week then UCC are involved.
“It’s just a lot of football for fellas at this moment in time. Gavin Crowley and Dara Moynihan played a half an hour in their game last Wednesday. We’ve just been trying to mind it as best as we can.”