The Kerryman (South Kerry Edition)
Rice taking nothing for granted despite external expectations
IT remains to be seen just how competitive Sunday’s Munster Club IFC Final between Templenoe and St Breckans turns out to be, but from their point of view the Kerry club will take nothing for granted when they point the bus towards Mallow early on Sunday morning.
With the Cork champions pushed aside with eight points to spare, the consensus is that there’s little to stand between Templenoe and a Munster title now, given how poorly Tipperary, Limerick, Waterford and Clare clubs have done in these provincial club intermediate and junior championships. Last Sunday’s demolition of Clare junior champions, Michael Cusacks, by Na Gaeil did little to dispel the realisation that the Kerry representatives are streets ahead of the rest.
Don’t try spelling that out to Templenoe manager John Rice, however. The quietly spoken Rice is going to bite on any notion that Templenoe have little else to do be get themselves to Mallow on Sunday.
“We’re not looking beyond this game, absolutely not,” Rice told The Kerryman. “It’s all about being ready for next Sunday. We certainly wouldn’t take anything for granted against anyone. You look back at Kilcummin last year and they had a hard battle to overcome the Clare champions [0-10 to 0-7 against Kilrush Shamrocks] in their championship. Where a team is from is immaterial to us, we’ve a challenge in front of us that we’ve got to be prepared for the same as anyone else.
“(St Breckans) dropped down from senior for this year and they’ve gone straight back up.
The bit we’ve seen of them, they seem to be a good combination of experience and youth so we’ve got to be on our guard.
On the provincial games so far Rice added: “There’s been very little time to think about things between games. We’re just looking forward to Sunday. We’re just doing recovery sessions mid-week, then a little bit of work at the weekend and just hoping to be peaking for the final now.
“We’ve eight or nine (players) in Cork, one in Limerick and three in Dublin, but in fairness everyone makes it back at the weekend so it’s pretty good. The Cork fellas make it home for the mid-week session so we’ve been good enough for numbers.”
Rice acknowledges his team’s poor county league results and relegation from Division One, but he can easily explain a disappointing summer while making a clear case that that will have no bearing on Sunday’s game.
“We’re a small rural club and we’ve probably have an active panel of 25 or 26 guys. There were several games where we were missing the four [Kerry] seniors and the two [Kerry] juniors, so that’s six gone, and we had a number of injuries as well. I think the night we played Strand Road we were missing 11 of our first 15 so the county league has had no bearing on where we are now. It’s very difficult when you just don’t have the numbers. You take the county league this year and Tadhg (Morley) played no game with us, I think Gavin (Crowley) and Killian (Spillane) played one (each) and Adrian (Spillane) played two, so for a small club like us that’s a big drawback,” the manager says.
Regarding the county players there is, Rice suggests, an upside too.
“They bring a lot of enthusiasm and there’d be a good buzz around the panel when they are around, but they’re also good role models for our own lads. Our lads are competing against them at training and they want to be up there with them.”
Rice concurs with the idea that team’s 2015 Junior Club Championship experience will be beneficial as another provincial final looms large.
“Very useful. I said that after the Eire Óg game. With the Junior campaign they’re used to being on the road in the Munster campaign, we’ve been away to Cork teams twice. We’re back in Mallow for this final where they won the Junior final four years ago, so it’s nothing new to them in one way, which is great, and that bit of experience is great to have,” he added.