Monaghan have got something Kerry lack
BEFORE we even made it to the car park, we were greeted by a dour one-man welcoming committee. It was the middle of February 2006 and with Darragh at the steering wheel, we made a grim road trip north all the way to Scotstown.
That’s the thing with Monaghan; any time they hosted us it was strictly off-Broadway to ensure we experienced the intimacy of their hospitality.
If it wasn’t Scotstown, it was Inniskeen or Castleblayney to the point that I had to wait until the final year of my career to tog out in Clones – a stadium and a pitch, to my mind, is like Fitzgerald Stadium on wheels.
Perhaps they thought we would feel too much at home there because they always seemed to reroute us to an environment built for adversity and discomfort.
And the man that greeted us wore his hi-vis with the kind of authority that suggested it came with a sheriff’s badge and a six-shooter.
‘Will you just look at the cut of this Killinaskully hoor,’ muttered Darragh as our man stopped us.
‘Where are ye going?’ he enquired.
‘The game. We are playing in it,’ replied Darragh.
‘Well, I don’t give two f**ks; ye can park down the other way,’ he pointed off in the distance to a spot where you would have needed a rail link to get to the dressing room.
Darragh hit the accelerator because in places like Scotstown, if you don’t drive on, you will be left to park inside a bog just to amuse the locals.
I was reminded of that when Oisín McConville warned that Kerry’s visit to Inniskeen today was going to be their ‘cold, rainy night in Stoke’ moment.
He is not wrong. It always is. If you asked me the toughest games I played on the road, I would always say Monaghan, which is quite the compliment because you would hardly confuse a trip to Omagh – or Ballybofey – for a sun-packaged holiday.
There are question marks over this Kerry team and I know where Oisín is coming from. There is a perception that if you apply enough heat to this group, they will melt. It is a question of character.
It will always be there until they win an All-Ireland, but I just don’t think that particular trait will hold them back.
In fact, and I know it is early days, but against Dublin, and particularly in the second half against Donegal last Sunday when the conditions demanded that instead of paint brushes they had to pick up shovels, they dug deep. And then they dug even deeper.
Now, Donegal were poor, paralysed by caution and limited ambition but to hold an elite team, with a hurricane blowing behind them, to two points for over 20 minutes in the second half can be taken as an indicator that they have the personality as a group to give Paddy Tally something to work with.
But it is the more fundamental questions about this Kerry team that bothers me, and Inniskeen may well expose it because Monaghan have something that Jack O’Connor’s team don’t possess.
I can’t figure out, in an age when there is an acceptance that the most important player on the pitch is the goalkeeper, how Kerry are strong favourites to win the All-Ireland despite not having that player.
Diarmuid Murphy will be on the sideline today but the truth is we haven’t had a commanding goalkeeper since he hung up his gloves in 2009.
We have had an All-Star ’keeper in Brendan Kealy, an All-Ireland winner in Brian Kelly and, in recent times, the two Shanes, Murphy and Ryan, who all were – and are –competent netminders, but competent does not cut it these days.
While the conversation has moved on to how the likes of Rory Beggan (he is a rare and special talent), Niall Morgan and Shaun Patton have evolved to influence outfield play, we are still struggling to get the ball off the kicking tee.
Shane Murphy’s struggles against Dublin were highlighted even more by the exquisite kicking of Evan Comerford and while Ryan’s return last weekend was an improvement, his only relief from being exposed was in going long.
I appreciate that kick-out strategies are as much about receivers as kickers, but the reality is that the top kickers are able to deal with full-court presses by delivering the kind of ball that can make such acts of pressing aggression quite expensive.
I just don’t get how Kerry aren’t even close to resolving an issue which every serious contender will pounce on as the season progresses.
That is a big concern and one that will rear its head time and again this year – and it will be evident today, too.
It also means that when facing the best teams, going long will probably have to be Kerry’s default position.
But with David Moran in the autumn of his career and battling back from injury, this is a team that is not over endowed with primary ball winners around the middle.
As poor as Donegal were last weekend, the one area where they caused Kerry no end of problems was around the middle where Diarmuid O’Connor and Jack Barry simply did not have the physicality to compete.
It may well have been an off-day for O’Connor – and I have seen enough to believe that he has what it takes to be a top player – but when you are not strong at source in terms of taking care of ball, then you have to be exceptional in terms of winning it.
And if that becomes the only source of relief, then inevitably, it will end up as a source of pain.
Like Darragh, Kerry might drive on in Inniskeen today but until they get to grips with their main problem, there will be a limit to how far they can travel.