Hurlers must deliver against Kildare
NICE to see you... to see you nice.
It was on Sunday night in Kildangan at any rate. Next Saturday evening in Croke Park? Well that remains very much to be seen.
Picture the scene. A Strictly Come Dancing evening in aid of Kildangan GAA club. Eamonn Kelly suited and booted, ready for a night on the boards.
All of a sudden across the room he spots him. Spots the man whose downfall he must plot. The man who in turn is actively plotting his downfall and that of his team.
And so the Kerry hurling manager and the Kildare hurling manager acknowledge each other and greet each other like what they are: old friends, comrades in arms, Kildangan hurling men. You really couldn't make it up. The two managers of the two teams in Saturday's Christy Ring Cup final, Kelly and Brian Lawlor, Kerry and Kildare, both hailing from the same club.
“Brian is a great friend of mine,” Kelly confirms.
“If anybody can read a team or read a situation he will do it. He's very, very astute, but it was great banter. It would definitely [be a topic of conversation in Kildangan] and particularly last night, you'd the whole parish out at that function.
“It was quite topical, who was going to prevail? The young gun or the old so and so? It is good, it's great locally and a lot of people are more tuned into what's happening in the Christy Ring as a consequence of it.”
It's just one of very many subplots for this final. There's a feeling, for example, that Kildare owe the Kingdom one. The final will, after all, be the third times the sides will have met this year. Kerry blitzed them the first time they met this year, in Abbeydorney in the league.
They beat them again just a couple of weeks ago in the Christy Ring Cup, this time on Kildare's home turf in Newbridge. A much tighter affair all round, even if Kerry ran out eight point victors all the same. What seemed an unbridgeable chasm in February isn't quite that anymore in the first week of June.
“I'd have sooner played Meath,” Kelly admits.
“Familiarity breeds contempt. They're learning about us every day. They went through a league campaign where they won no game, now they're gaining momentum, they've had a draw and won three games in-a-row, so their confidence is growing.
“They're a good side. I would have said it on numerous occasions that Kildare would be the team to beat. It's absolutely set up for them in that there's absolutely no pressure on them. We'll be favourites, they'll be underdogs. We've beaten them twice, so they've all the motivation. It's the one game we really need to be on guard for.”
And that's even before we consider what happened in McHale Park last weekend. The first half went according to script. Kerry were expected to be far superior to Mayo and they proved it. Three goals, fourteen points, an eighteen point lead over a disjointed opposition. Move along nothing more to see here.
All that changed and changed absolutely in the second half. Mayo re-emerged energised for the second half and proceeded to outscore the Kingdom 1-13 to 0-6. A worrying reversal just seven days before a final.
Was it complacency? Did the players start to believe their own press a little too much? Were they tired? Did Mayo simply expose weaknesses in the Kerry defence that we haven't seen exposed to date?
“The wheels just fell off the wagon,” Kelly explains.
“Hopefully now it's just a wake-up call we need. There
would have been no point playing on and winning the game by thirty points, that would have been a disaster going into a final. We didn't plan it that way, but it happened.”
Kelly's logic here is impeccable. It stung like hell at the time, but it really was for the best that these players get a wake-up call like that. Excluding the play-off defeat to Offaly, they've yet to taste defeat in competitive hurling this year.
In most of those victories they've been the superior force by far, especially so in the Christy Ring Cup. Up until last Saturday they'd hammered Derry and, essentially, had their second round match with Kildare wrapped up at half-time.
The consensus view this past few months has been that Kerry are much better than any other team in this competition right now. It's a view based on what they've done this year and to our mind remains an accurate one, with one important caveat: as long as they're 100% focussed and at their best.
Clearly that didn't happen in Castlebar and that's totally understandable. It was all happening a little too easy for them. What team wouldn't ease up a little when ahead by such a margin? It's only natural and that's why it wouldn't worry us unduly.
The fact too that Tom Murnane wasn't fit to start the game had to have an effect as the second half wore on. He is, as Eamonn Kelly says, a natural leader. He would have roused his troops from fullback and tightened things up considerably.
He should have recovered in time for this weekend's game and the management team will be demanding a return to the kind of form their defence showed against Offaly. If they do that then they ought to have more than enough firepower to see off Kildare, improved and all as they are.
This Kerry team has a veritable smorgasbord of attacking talent. The half-back line is the launching pad for so much of the Kingdom's good work. Darragh O'Connell has been in sensational form this year as has newcomer Sean Weir. Between them Saturday they scored with five from play.
Colm Harty can score from midfield. Daniel Collins from centre-forward. Where ever he's stationed John Egan is a threat. Close to goal or pulling the strings from midfield, the captain will have a huge influence on the outcome.
Mikey Boyle's return this year has been one of the more under-rated aspects of this Kingdom revival. How often did we worry last year about a lack of a ball winning presence on the half-forward line? How often do you hear similar complaints this year?
Kerry have the players to win this game. They have the game plan. They have the manager and the preparation they need to finish the job. Remember, though, sometimes that's just not enough.
We would have said very similar things last year. We were even a little confident that then manager Tom Howard's men had done enough to bring the title back to the Kingdom for just the second time.
Into time added on with a two point lead, they looked home and hosed. Name on the cup. You name it, they had it. We all know what happened next. Gareth Johnson nabbed a goal out of nowhere. Defeat for the Kingdom, snatched, from the jaws of victory.
It's a story worth telling here, for even though we do expect the Kingdom to win anything can and, more often than not, will happen in a final. The veterans of last year – captain John Egan principal amongst them – know that all too well.
It falls upon them as much as on the manager to ram this point home emphatically to the younger players. This final is there to be won and unless they do all the good form they’ve shown, all the praise they’ve (rightfully) garnered will be for nought.
They’ll still be in the Christy Ring Cup, they’ll still be in Division 2A. They need something tangible to reward this season of real progress. They need to win the Christy Ring Cup. They need to have a crack at Westmeath a week later. They need to beat Kildare.
It’s in nobody’s hands but their own.
Verdict: Kerry