MARC Ó Sé: KINGDOM CAN’T HOLD BACK AGAINST DUBLIN
FOOTBALL nostalgia junkies got their fix this week in the build-up to Kerry and Dublin’s return to Thurles, 20 years on from their All-Ireland quarter-final clash and replay. I was there both days, sitting alongside my late father, and the odd thing is my most vivid memory is not that Maurice Fitzgerald point that gave us a second chance or Johnny Crowley’s two goals that decided the second match. As clear as day I can recall getting a rare, but fierce, telling-off from my old man.
Back then, I was on the fringes in training but never part of the match-day squad. I was an extended panel member except that phrase had not become fashionable at the time.
I should have known better because, as usual, my father underwent a personality metamorphosis when he watched his sons play for Kerry.
His usual Zen–like demeanour was suspended for 70-odd minutes and replaced with the fervour of an evangelical preacher.
I could have gone to those games blindfolded and I would still have been able to tell you each time Darragh and Tomás were on the ball, because when they were my father’s knee would press involuntarily into me as he kicked enough ball for the two of them.
And then it happened, close to the end and with one foot already in the semi-final against Meath, Tomás loses the canopy and comes up with the kind of strike that, in less tolerant jurisdictions, might have led to a custodial sentence, but Pat McEnaney settled for a straight red card.
Tomás had not made it as far as the line and I had already done the numbers in my head and came up with an answer that made me giddy.
‘Jesus, if Tomás misses the semi, I will be in the match-day panel,’ I suggested to my father, whose head was already buried in his hands at the consequences of one son’s loose fists, when another’s loose tongue doubled his despair.
The air turned as blue as the swathe of terrace that housed the Hill on Tour that afternoon before he offered me some advice.
‘If you tell Tomás that… the only thing you will be making this week is the funeral home,’ he roared.
I won’t be back in the stand today but, while the stakes will not be as high as 20 years ago, I believe if my father was still with us I would feel his knee pressing into me again.
In the grand scheme of things, you can argue that today does not matter that much but it is a far bigger game for Kerry than it is for Dublin.
There is a school of thought out there that Peter Keane should not show the champions his hand too early. The people who think like that are living in the past when we were Dublin’s masters, or at least their equals. The days when we felt the need to be cute when playing
Dublin are in past, today we just need to win. Simples.
Not only is there nothing we can hide from Dublin, there is nothing that we should.
One of the many things I admire about the champions is that they have never bothered blowing smoke, and every chance they get they try and drive into teams just how good they are.
I know there is some truth in what Peter Keane said after last weekend’s mauling of Galway – a game which is better forgotten about than leaned on for a sense of where Kerry are at – that his team is still young but when you play Dublin you have to grow up fast. Back in 2018, Éamonn Fitzmaurice brought a team – it included David Clifford and Sean O’Shea – to Croke Park for a league game and Jim Gavin put his side out to drive them into the ground just to remind them of football’s pecking order.
Three years on, Kerry need to show Dublin that those days are in the past and instead start sowing some seeds of doubt into the champions, who are another year older and are now light of the irreplaceable talents that are Jack McCaffrey and Paul Mannion.
There is merit in Kerry showing their hand to Dublin because it would amount to an expression of confidence that might just spook the champions a little.
I feel – and I am aware of just how scant the evidence is – that Dublin are edging a little back towards the pack and that Kerry, along with a few others, are intent on meeting them half-way.
APART from the departure of Mannion and McCaffrey, the Dublin bench is not the match-changing weapon it used to be and, while Brian Howard’s impact in last December’s All-Ireland final might appear to contradict, the truth is his omission from the starting team was a mystery in the first place.
I look at Kerry now and I can that they are developing a bench that will not only dial up the competition for starting places, but can change the course of matches.
Stephen O’Brien, Tony Brosnan, James O Donoghue and Tommy
Walsh can come into the attack, Diarmuid and Joe O’Connor are strong midfield options while Tom O’Sullivan has to come back into defence.
On that basis alone, I believe Kerry are in a stronger place than two years ago when they reached the All-Ireland final, but even more importantly I also believe that Peter Keane’s game-plan will reflect that growing confidence.
The big disappointment in the 2019 replayed final was how we pulled in our horns, were reluctant to go after Stephen Cluxton’s kickouts in the manner we had in the drawn match and, in so doing, handed the initiative to Dublin.
While Galway’s efforts were pathetic last week, Kerry’s press was high and sustained on Bernard Power’s kick-outs.
Of course, it is one thing doing that in Tralee in the first round of the league against off-guard opponents, quite another to do so in Croke Park against one of the greatest teams of all time.
But there is no other way to beat Dublin other than being brave.
And if there is no other way, then there are no secrets to keep.
If Kerry start out today as they mean to go on, they will win today’s battle.
And the war will be up for grabs, too.