‘Mad to get going’ – Ladies boss on draw

Damian Stack The Kerry ladies have been drawn in a group with old rivals Cork for this year’s TG4 All Ireland SFC

AT last clarity. Well of a sort. There remains a number of issues to be ironed out, details to be confirmed, but the main thing is that football is back later this year. The main thing is that the Kerry ladies footballers know who they’ll be playing in this year’s All Ireland championship.

With the Munster championship decoupled from the

All Ireland series – and, as of now there’s no guarantee the Munster championship will be played at all – there must have been a certain amount of hope that the Kingdom could escape from under the yoke of the Rebel County.

Alas, when the draw was made last week the Kingdom found themselves drawn in a group with the old enemy. Group 1 will see Kerry, Cork and Cavan do battle for a place in the All Ireland semi-final. Still to be the best, one must beat the best and, while their stock has slipped a little, Cork are still a powerhouse of the game.

“Not it’s not [an easy one],” Kerry joint-manager Declan Quill concedes.

“It’s actually one of the harder groups. We had experienced Cavan earlier in the year. It was our first league game and we got a right tough game up there in Cavan. We got out of it with a one point victory and it was probably one of our tightest league games all year and looking back on it Cavan weren’t at full strength either.

“They had a girl called Aisling Sheridan who would be one of the top forwards in all of Ulster away playing in the Aussie Rules at the time. So she’ll be back. They’ve some very good forwards as it is and adding her into the mix from the league they’ll be quite stiff opposition.

“Then the other one is the old enemy from Cork and they’re a fantastic team and have been for the last number of years. They’ve had it over Kerry for a number of years and it’s going to be a huge challenge to get past them.

“We’re under no illusions that this is going to be a very tough group to come out of, especially when there’s only one team coming out. Any of the three teams could come out of it. It could be that close.”

Kerins O’Rahillys man Quill remains hopeful that room might be found in the calendar for the Munster Championship and is certainly an advocate for getting it played.

“I don’t think that the Munster has been ruled out yet,” he says.

“There has been talks this week that something may go ahead Munster-wise, but obviously it won’t have any effect on the All Ireland series. We were drawn to play Waterford in the Munster championship and Cork were drawn against Tipperary, so it’s actually a nice competition because there’s four teams in it this year seeing as Tipp are after coming up from intermediate.

“We’d love a good competitive game against Waterford and if we won it we’d probably be playing Cork or Tipp, let’s say Cork, so you’d get two right competitive games and at championship intensity that you mightn’t get in a challenge game level. You’d be in good shape for an All Ireland series.

“That decision could have been made last night [Thursday], but I think the Munster Council meeting was actually deferred for a couple of weeks. So we actually don’t know [for a while]. Should the Munster championship go ahead, obviously we would love it, but if it doesn’t go ahead we’ll understand the reasons.

“Time is very tight at the moment, trying to fit everything in. So if we don’t get a Munster competition this year we’ll just have to go looking for a few challenge matches and be ready for the All Ireland series in that way.”

Either way both management and players are in a very positive frame of mind following all the announcements of late.

“We’re delighted it’s going ahead,” Quill says.

“We’re mad to get going. Obviously the girls are training with their clubs at the moment and preparing for County Championship, which is a lovely programme of games for the County Championship this year.

“The County Board put together a great programme of games for the girls. They’re starting on August 3 with Monday night games and I think that’s very good because a lot of girls are working in the tourism industry home from college and they work in bars and restaurants. So they have their weekends free and play on the Monday night. I think it’s a very good idea.

“They’re training with their clubs and we just have to monitor them. We’re in contact over WhatsApp and they’re mad to get going and delighted to see that there’s a draw there and see what group they’re in and get back to the buzz that we had earlier on in the year and the close knit group that we had, we’re just hoping to get back to that when we get back training.”

As of yet no specific dates have been given for the start of the championship – early to mid October would seem to be the range under consideration with Kerry likely to face Cavan in the first round, probably at a neutral venue.

And, as positive as Quill is about what’s been proposed, he does see some potential draw backs to three team groups with only one team progressing out of it and on to the All Ireland semi-final in November.

“There’s a possibility of dead rubber games,” he says.

“If you look at the way the groups are set up you could possibly have dead rubber games in the last game in the group. I was speaking to the Waterford manager yesterday and he was saying the same.

“If it was the case in Waterford’s group with Dublin and Donegal and their last game would be more than likely Waterford and Donegal in the last game in the group and if that’s the case Dublin could already be qualified out of the group.

“Why would you spend a couple of thousand or whatever getting a team there, meals afterwards, maybe eve have to stay overnight, it’s a lot of preparation for a dead-rubber game? If you had two coming out of the group you’d have no dead-rubber game.

“We asked for quarter-final in an email correspondence, Monaghan did the same. If you had quarter-finals you’d have no dead rubber game.

“Right down to the last minute of the group it would be fierce competitive because two coming out.

“It’s disappointing. There is aweekthere.Theyseemtobe giving two weeks there between the group and the semi-final and then two weeks to the final. Why not play a week before the semi-final? After all these months teams are just mad to play games.”

One other issue that continues to rankle for the Kerry boss and his squad of players it’s that room hasn’t been found to complete the National Leagues.

“We were looking for the

league to be reinstated, we’d get two more games there. It doesn’t look like it’s going to happen,” Quill confirms.

“I don’t know why they abandoned the leagues straight away. When the Covid-19 outbreak hit first the men held off and they’re actually going to play their league games. That would have been an ideal warm up, just like for the men.

“You play your two games and whatever way you end up, promotions and relegations are sorted for the next year. I don’t know what they’re going to do with the leagues next year... as in are they going to keep the same fixtures? Are we going to have our same home games as this year?

“Are they going to say it’s the opposite fixtures for next year? Or are they going to draw a whole new set of fixtures, different groups and different divisions? It’s very hard for them. If they played the last two games they’d have all that sorted out.

“We’re disappointed with that because our main aim really this year was to get promoted to Division 1 so we’d be playing the Galways and Dublins and Corks week in week out and try to raise our own level.”

All in all though Quill is in a really positive frame of mind. It’s good to be back.