Kingdom’s narrative suffers a set-back

“I wouldn’t say there’s a cynical bone in our bodies” – Kerry captain Johnny Buckley

THIS was it, the moment of truth. The moment that could well define not just a game, but a season, a legacy. With so much riding on it could anybody be surprised with what happened next? With so much riding on it did anybody blink an eye when what happened, happened?

Michael Fitzsimons was surging through, space opening up in front of him, with just seconds remaining on the clock. Unless somebody intervened Dublin were going to score, denying the Kingdom a first win over Dublin in over two years.

A line needed to be drawn in the sand. The man nearest Fitzsimons knew what needed to be done. Anthony Maher reached out and caught hold of the Dubliner’s jersey. Down on his knees by now, the Duagh man pulled his opponent to the turf.

All day long a black card, Maher could have few complaints when Paddy Neilan reached into his pocket and sent him to the line. Was it a cynical thing that Maher did? Unquestionably. Will he have any regrets about it? You’ve got to be kidding me.

If Maher didn’t act when he did, it’s possible, probable even given their strength in depth, that Dublin would have won that National League final in extra-time, delivering a real blow to Kerry’s confidence.

No, Maher did the right thing. What’s more nobody questioned it. Everybody understood. His manager may not have exchanged a high five with him on the sideline as he made his way from the pitch, but Eamonn Fitzmaurice almost certainly wasn’t displeased with Maher.

If anything Fitzmaurice would have been livid had Maher come over all gentlemanly and simply allowed Fitzsimons all the time and space he desired in front of the Kingdom’s D into the Hill 16 end.

That the Maher tackle came less than a week after Fitzmaurice’s famous press conference in Austin Stack Park wouldn’t have bothered the Kerry manager unduly either. Fitzmaurice didn’t directly address cynicism in his comments that day, though the word had increasingly come to be associated (unfairly we would suggest) with his side.

Ninety nine times out of one hundred, Fitzmaurice’s goal is to create as few headlines as possible in these press events. On this occasion, however, the Finuge man was out to make waves, out to drive the agenda.

Something had been gnawing away at him for the previous couple of weeks. A narrative, he felt, had been developing in an unbalanced manner that suggested his team were over-physical, dirty even, and he wasn’t having it. Calmly, coolly, he compared and contrasted his side with Dublin. “They have a hard edge, but so have we,” he maintained, while adding that, “I have never tried to paint us whiter than white.” And therein lies the rub. That’s why he wasn’t in the least bit embarrassed (nor should he have been) when Kerry had to resort to a little bit of skullduggery to get over the line in Croke Park. Winning is the name of the game and in the battle for headlines and sound-bites – as well as on the pitch – Fitzmaurice played a blinder that week. So much so than in the weeks since the National League final Jim Gavin has attempted to do something similar, questioning whether referees have been influenced by “the narrative”. Really and truly Fitzmaurice caught (or perhaps even drove) the zeitgeist with that one. We do wonder, however, how Fitzmaurice reacted to new Kerry captain Johnny Buckley’s comments at last week’s Munster championship launch in Muckross House. Most of what the Dr Crokes man had to say was eminently sensible, as we would expect from him. Buckley stated simply that there was no “conscious decision” made by players or management to be more cynical this year than in previous years and that is 100% believable. What’s not believable is his above statement that the Kerry squad haven’t a cynical bone in their bodies. We’ve got to assume it’s a throwaway line from Buckley, said in the moment, not fully thought through, because if it had been he would have remembered what Maher did in Croke Park a little over a month ago. Probably Buckley meant to say that Kerry aren’t a cynical team and in that he’s 100% correct. There’s a difference between a team or a player willing to do something cynical out of desperation and one which fouls cynically. That’s a charge that’s been levelled at Kerry at times this spring, but one that misses the mark. Kerry’s consistent fouling – the Mayo match stands on especially in this regard – would be counter-productive if it was cynical in its intent. Whatever about all that Fitzmaurice will hope that Buckley’s words – inartful as they perhaps were – won’t reopen the debate (dare we say the narrative) about Kerry as a cynical side, though we should probably be careful not to overestimate the importance of such things in the grander scheme of things. Then again if they didn’t matter would Jim Gavin – or Eamonn Fitzmaurice for that matter – have bothered with them in the first place?