It was very much a case of crisis, what crisis as victorious Kerry boss Jack O’Connor reflected on his side’s tenth consecutive All-Ireland quarter-final victory after their 17-point demolition of Dublin at Croke Park today.
Rumours of discontent in the Kingdom camp have been rife throughout the summer, culminating in the benching of Colm Cooper and Tomás Ó Sé for the final qualifier game against Antrim for breaching team disciplinary procedures.
O’Connor agreed it was par for the course for a Kerry side that were far from impressive in the qualifiers, but that it had no affect on the team.
“Sure there are a lot of people who get a bit of pleasure out of criticising you, especially when you’re not going well.
“We felt ourselves that we were trying really hard, the management and the players were giving it everything, and that’s the only thing that mattered to us.
“If it were otherwise we’d say so. But sure people can say what they like, it doesn’t trouble us. It used to trouble me once upon a time but it doesn’t anymore. And in many ways it helped to gel us together, because we felt if we stuck together that it didn’t matter what people were saying about us and that’s the way it was,” said O’Connor.
Reports during the week that Kerry were firing in training were borne out by their whirlwind start this afternoon, with Cooper firing home to the Dublin net inside the first minute, while points flowed freely from all angles and areas of the pitch.
O’Connor admitted it was a key element of their game plan to snatch momentum from Pat Gilroy’s side in the early stages.
“Dublin pride themselves on getting a fast start and getting the Hill behind them. We were very adamant that we were going to put it up to them in the first ten minutes and the goal and a couple of points settled us. It gave our fellas a bit of belief and we played with great confidence after that,” added O’Connor.
That belief also stemmed from a group of players and a management that had no interest in packing up their championship campaign too early.
“We felt there was a big performance in us. I said it during the week, we had too much put into this to throw in the towel. There were a lot of people writing us off, but we felt ourselves we had an awful lot of work put into this ourselves and we didn’t feel like going out of the championship in the first week in August. I’m just delighted for the lads, they worked so hard and got their just rewards today.”
Gilroy made no excuses for his side’s capitulation on the day, again pointing to those vital early exchanges as key to the outcome.
“I think we froze, we looked like startled earwigs for the first 15 minutes, all over the place. We weren’t getting to the speed of the game at all.
“Right around the middle third they were flooding through on us and that killed our full-back line. It just totally opened us up and we were behind all over the place. Even when we did get ball we weren’t winning it in our full-forward line. There was nowhere where we got to the game in the first 20 minutes,” said Gilroy.
Dublin’s fifth-straight Leinster title had again raised expectations of ending the 14-year All-Ireland title drought in the capital, with the Sky Blues going into the game at 4/5 on against a Kerry price of 11/8, which now looks like the bet of the summer.
Gilroy believes players and management will have to have a cold, hard look at themselves in the coming weeks after again crumbling once outside of Leinster.
“I think from the off we weren’t at the races and we’ve got to sit down and analyse why. We’ve worked very hard and we just did not do ourselves justice out there at all today
“It’s sport, they’re not going to give up but we have to ask serious questions and find the answers. You don’t want to be coming out here every summer and having that kind of performance as your last one.”
