Modern-day tactics sidestep traditions
The idea of any county playing a certain way is gone
READING back through an opening passage from Jack O’Connor’s book,
Keys to the Kingdom, just brings home just how fast the football world has been spinning on its axis since Penguin first published the 2007 memoir, one that opened a revealing window into the Kerry psyche and into a triumphant first coming as Kerry senior football manager.
It almost feels like stepping back in time to a completely different era, rather than the first decade of the new millennium. The words on the page have a dusty, oldworld feel, of Sundays of Mícheál Ó hEithir on the radio and a Golden Years tape playing in an old video player.
They offer a fascinating glimpse into how Gaelic football was played for 125 years and more, before the ‘nouveau riche’ of Tyrone came along and threatened conventional thinking, and the idea of how the game should be played, never mind how a certain county should play the game.
Here’s O’Connor, still smarting from the All-Ireland final defeat of 2005 by Mickey Harte’s side. ‘I’m from south Kerry, where maybe the purest football in the country is played.
‘Tackling is like heckling a tenor during his solo. We like to see the skills of the game on display. We enjoy catching and kicking. Even here, though, you have to be pragmatic. You have to play football that will win matches.
‘We have to persuade ourselves that there’s nothing morally wrong with tackling!
‘This is the third big championship game we have lost in four years to hard-tackling northern teams. It shouldn’t be a hard argument to win.
‘People around here won’t like it. Johnny Culloty will understand, but he won’t like it either. Johnny is a great voice for me to have in my ear, he knows the romance of Kerry football better than anyone. His word to me always is that we have to win and we have to win with a bit of style, Kerry style. Johnny, you might have to look the other way for a while.’
The Kerry selector and sounding board did have to do just that as O’Connor committed the heresy of actually skimming through the Ulster Council website for suitable tackling drills.
It feels almost quaint now, the idea of embracing the art of tackling, given the rate at which Gaelic football has evolved. And it has to be said, how quickly Kerry evolved with it, the book published after O’Connor guided his county to the 2006 title to go with the 2004 success, Kerry and Tyrone squaring off in many a Team of the Decade conversation.
Kerry, no more than any other county, have had to cast aside any delusions about the game being played according to the dictates of tradition.
The county’s last title in 2014 under Eamonn Fitzmaurice was a monument to pragmatic thinking in the way that Kerry took the sting out of Donegal with an adapted version of their gameplan, the trademark Jim McGuinness defensive shield and counterattacking set-up.
In the very same way that the gates have been closed to supporters, forcing any prying eyes to shin up the nearest tree overlooking Fitzgerald Stadium in Killarney, the modern game leaves no room for sentiment.
The idea of a county playing a certain way in football is gone.
Of course the likes of Kerry and Dublin in particular like to move the ball fast and show off the graceful, high-quality kicking game that can be so good to watch but the two All-Ireland semi-finals to come between Dublin and Mayo and Kerry and Tyrone will be all about shifting tactical set-ups.
A high press when the moment demands on the opposition kickout. A soft cough-up of the short kick-out when required. A rolling mass defence when every outfield player drops back to clog one half of the field, to slow the tempo of the game down or the opposition’s scoring rate or simply break their rhythm.
Dublin’s historic run of six AllIrelands in a row has been built around fluid thinking. Smart, shape-shifting set-ups, not just from game to game but constantly within games.
The hard lesson of being exposed at the back by Donegal in the 2012 All-Ireland semi-final was well learned.
Harte’s era with Tyrone ended in part because the team was based too much upon putting tacklers into the team rather than trusting more the finesse of a Darren McCurry who has blossomed this year under the watch of Brian Dooher and Feargal Logan.
Tyrone’s ability to tackle isn’t in question; but what of Kerry? Especially their front six? The answer to that question could well define their hopes of an All-Ireland as much as their thrilling ability to attack when on the front foot.
Philly McMahon has eight AllIreland medals, is chasing a ninth, and was asked if Gaelic football has become all very programmed, if the warrior element that suits his game is missing from a championship dominated by possession–based gameplans, Dublin the masters of playing keep-ball under pressure.
‘I am not sure. The championship so far for me has been very interesting because I watch the game differently — I don’t watch it as a spectator, I watch it as a player so I am looking at bits and I go “oh that is interesting”. I am thinking about the way teams setup and the way players play so for me it has been quite interesting and I definitely think the two semi-finals are going to be really good semi-finals. I have no doubt Mayo will try everything they can to outperform us and to get the result at the end of the day.’
No more than the winter final of December, Dublin-Mayo will be a very modern encounter. KerryTyrone — when it happens on Saturday week — the same.
Jack O’Connor’s instincts were right. The idea of a county playing a certain way in football to suit tradition is gone.
You have to be pragmatic to win games