KILLINAN END - Kerry are still some way off greatness

Eamon Dunphy once joked, in relation his own tendency to become entrenched in viewpoints, that it is a sign of an intelligent person to be able to hold two utterly opposing points of view at the same time. If there is any truth in this then the GAA membership and punditry seems to be the most intelligent group ever assembled. A universal truth of recent years was that the ease with which Dublin’s footballers cruised through Leinster merely contributed to their dominance. They were in a position to ‘peak’ at the precise time required to scale the heights required to compete with Tyrone, Mayo, Kerry, Donegal etc. It was not a new argument.

When Kilkenny’s hurlers were going swimmingly a decade and a half ago the bristled at the suggestion that they had it handy enough. The argument went that if they had to play Cork, Tipperary and Limerick every year, they’d be even better, with all that match practice. Their theory was put to the test somewhat by the arrival of Galway into Leinster, as well as the revival of Wexford, though to be fair it was hardly a laboratory conditions test either as Kilkenny were not the force of old. But increased competition has not improved Kilkenny which if you accepted the old theory should not be the case. In the same way Galway, who apparently suffered in the old days from lack of match practice, have found that the problem with extra competition is that it can result in defeat. In reality sport is not massively sensitive to imagined factors.

Some 30/40 years ago you would have been told that the All Blacks were essentially professional and the playing field was not level. With the advent of professional rugby you will find that by and large there is more or less the same pecking order as seen in the 1950s or ‘60s – the All Blacks and Springboks……………….and then the rest. Factors of success, especially long-term sustainable success, seem deep-rooted indeed. South Africa beat the Lions in the summer despite not having played a comparable level test match for nearly two years. The innate knowledge of the standard required saw them home.

This is what makes the recent view that Kerry lacked match-sharpness against Tyrone because they were not tested in Munster difficult to swallow. There is a scant evidence this was ever an issue for Kerry. Reasons for their failure against Tyrone might be more basic. Tyrone are the third county from Ulster they have opposed in recent years. They played Donegal in Croke Park in 2019 and drew. They played Monaghan in Clones a year earlier and drew. Lest anyone be tempted talk of Tyrone and Down and some of Kerry Ulster hoodoo, let’s not forget that Kerry have also lost to Galway and Mayo in the championship in the past four years.

This does not make Kerry bad – just ordinary. Merely a county to which normal rules apply. When they face what we can call Division 1 opposition, such as some of these Ulster counties, Mayo, Dublin, and Galway too, margins become tighter. When you don’t have Jack O’Shea, Bomber Liston, Mikey Sheehy, and the team of superstars they had back in the day it can become very tight indeed. Kerry’s defeat against Tyrone probably reflects where they are at rather than the nature of Munster opposition which prepared them.

Much attention was drawn to the significance of David Clifford to Kerry’s scoring prowess, yet during extra-time they notched five points in 20 minutes without him. It was goals that did for them in the end. That and some wretched decisions, most notably Stephen O’Brien’s misjudgement in entering the ‘square’ unnecessarily and having his goal disallowed. The last-gasp attempt at a score by Tommy Walsh was the sort of decision at odds with what the better teams exhibit. Risking possession at that time especially for a fairly unlikely point from a relatively unlikely source was not the decision of a team in control of matters.

It can of course be argued that coming through a cauldron of a Munster championship would hone and sharpen decision-making in such a pressured environment. That may well be true. Whether it would really make enough of a difference to get Kerry over the line outside the province is another matter. When Dublin were in full flight in recent years they showed patience and presence of mind when required as Kerry themselves experienced directly in the dying minutes of the 2019 drawn final. This was not developed by huge competition on the playing fields of Leinster. No less than Kerry there usually was a jump in intensity and standard for Dublin outside the province.

Explanations for Kerry’s demise relate far more to the team itself and the nature of the players they are choosing. Several players such as Paul Geaney, Tommy Walsh, Stephen O’Brien, Paul Murphy and David Moran have now entered their fourth decade. It is hard to imagine many of them being around to lift the Sam Maguire cup. In a county which won five Minor titles 2014-18 you would assume the talent in there. But when you consider that they failed to add a single under-20/21 title to match any of those five Minor championships it is clear that the next few for Kerry will be a challenge.