Saints will find it hard to beat East Kerry again

COUNTY SFC SEMI-FINAL

East Kerry v St Brendans Sunday, October 27 Fitzgerald Stadium, 1.30pm

WE’VE seen it so many times across different grades and sports: it’s damned difficult to beat the same team twice in the same competition.

All you have to do is look at the hurling championship here in the Kingdom over the last couple of years to see what we mean. In 2018 Causeway were big winners over Lixnaw in the second round only to find themselves outplayed by Lixnaw at the semi-final stage. Then this year the script was flipped, albeit at the final rather than the semi-final stage.

The lesson being that having beaten a team once you should hope to avoid them down the line. Of all the draws St Brendans could have got for their first trip back to a county semi-final in twenty seven years, this is probably the hardest of the bunch for that very reason.

You could argue that South Kerry or Dr Crokes are more formidable than East Kerry are at the moment – time will tell on that of course and they may very well be – but for Brendans right here, right now, East Kerry carry a unique threat.

East Kerry will know that much more about them than either Dr Crokes or South Kerry would have done and, as it turns out, Jerry O’Sullivan’s men should probably know more about Seamus Murphy’s than the other way around.

Why do we say that? Well because the St Brendans team from that first round is closer to the one we’re going to see this weekend than the one East Kerry are going to bring to Killarney.

Yes St Brendans have improved and evolved and brought players into the starting fifteen since then – Trevor Wallace for instance – but much more so East Kerry are a different beast now than then. The reason why is clear: the return of the two Clifford brothers, Paudie and David.

East Kerry have lost Dara Moynihan to injury since then, but his absence has been ameliorated by the return of Fossa’s fearsome pair. From day one of their return – against Austin Stacks in Fitzgerald Stadium – the two Cliffords have helped kick-start East Kerry’s championship challenge.

It’s not just the quality they themselves possess, it’s the confidence their very presence seems to bring. East Kerry are playing better since the Cliffords returned from suspension and individually that’s also the case.

Just look at the confidence with which Darragh Roche was playing last weekend. He was back to the type of form we remember him in from last season. With Clifford for company again he’s flourishing.

It also appears to be the case that East Kerry are a lot meaner at the back now than they were in those earlier parts of the championship. Jack Sherwood was really excellent on Paul Geaney on Saturday evening, while Dan O’Donoghue is really coming into his own on the half-back line.

The more you look at East Kerry the more you see a side capable of challenging for the championship. Possibly the only area where you might question them is at midfield in terms of out and out ball-winning ability, but even then both Liam Kearney and Shane Cronin are quality footballers.

All the same the strongest part the St Brendans’ package is their midfield pairing of Jack Barry and Diarmuid O’Connor. It’s not just that both men can field, it’s that they seem to be most complimentary of each other. Barry is hanging back a little more and allowing the younger O’Connor to bomb forward to telling effect.

O’Connor is arguably St Brendans’ most important attacking weapon, even with Ivan Parker back in the sort of form he demonstrated this time last year. That’s obviously a good thing, but it also suggests a slight lack of depth in the forward division – if only as compared with East Kerry.

Dáithí Griffin and David O’Callaghan are fine players – and O’Callaghan linked up really well on the weekend – but there just aren’t as many scores in that St Brendans front six as there is in East Kerry’s where every one of their front six has the potential to put up quality scores.

Overall East Kerry just seem to carry that much more of a threat and have that little bit of extra quality in most sectors, bar as we say midfield and goalkeeper where Eoghan O’Brien has made a real name for himself of late.

That’s not to say it’s nailed on or that St Brendans can’t win. They could and they can. It’s just that the balance of probabilities lies with East Kerry. Do the Brendans have somebody to mark David Clifford? They’ll probably have to double mark him or at least drop a sweeper back.

Do the Brendans have somebody to stop Paudie Clifford from pulling the strings? Can Brandon Barrett, who’s been having a fine campaign? Possibly he can, but as we say such is the quality that East Kerry possess that if you block off one avenue they’ll simply open another.

It will take a level of performance St Brendans, as good as they’ve been, haven’t yet achieved if they are to win here. No time like the present to show if they can.

Verdict: East Kerry