When sitting down to watch any game, the first thing I look out for are trends.
Analysts get paid good money because they notice and pick up on consistencies in play quicker than others.
So, when I sat down to rewatch Kerry’s win over Tyrone, it was in the context of looking for trends. And it didn’t take long to notice both Kerry’s defending and attacking were very much on point.
From early on you could see Kerry had a great balance throughout the team. Tyrone tried to break the Kingdom’s defence down in those opening exchanges and in the 11th minute a ball was sent in towards the Ulster side’s full-forward line, but Jason Foley got out in front of his man really well and turned over possession.
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Immediately, Kerry were in a transitional moment and the ball ultimately ended up with Seán O’Shea popping over a very good point from the top of the D.
Moments later Tom O’Sullivan raided forward and dinked a ball inside to David Clifford, who laid it back to him and O’Sullivan nonchalantly kicked the ball over the bar for a great score.
Tyrone were already starting to take on water, all over the pitch the Kerry players looked tuned in. At one point, Michael O’Neill picked up possession around his defensive 65-metre line and took off up the field.
The pitch seemed to open out before him, but Adrian Spillane had other ideas. Spillane put the head down and started sprinting, by the time the Tyrone player had crossed the offensive 45 his pursuer had made up the ground, got in around O’Neill and turned the ball over.
In that moment Spillane showed a serious desire to defend, because it would have been easier to let somebody else further up the pitch deal with O’Neill. But he decided not to take the easy option. That showed the intent and hunger in Kerry’s play.
Kerry’s defending throughout was excellent, Spillane’s turnover was just one example of many. Kerry had the right mentality and attitude to frustrate Tyrone’s attacking game, all built around a very good structure.
The attacking side of their game hasn’t gone away either.
Diarmuid O’Connor’s first-half point was a perfect example of how Kerry like to attack. Foley started it off again, this time delivering a long downfield punt off the laces. As soon as Foley played the ball, O’Connor took off at speed. O’Shea won possession and then offloaded it to the third-man runner, O’Connor, who stroked it over the bar.
It was a prototype point straight from the Kerry training ground. They like to attack with pace: quick, accurate kicks to their forwards, with runners coming in at speed. When they lay the ball back to that third-man runner, for me then it’s very much ‘play it as you see it’ for the man in possession.
O’Connor’s goal ended the game as a contest and again the build-up play to that score oozed quality, composure, confidence and, most importantly, threat.
Rewatching the game, it was hard not to sense Kerry had really started to find their groove, and that might be bad news for the rest of the country.
For me, the hardest thing in sport is getting over the line. With every passing year that pressure grows, it becomes immense. But once you achieve your goal, the dynamic of a group can change very quickly.
Self-validation can be a very powerful driving force for any team, and for this Kerry side there would be no stronger validation than back-to-back All-Irelands.
Kerry have regrouped exceptionally well from their defeat to Mayo in Killarney. Crucially, for me they appear to have an excellent balance in the team.
The finish line for this year’s championship is in sight now and this is the stage of the season when you need to know you can do both sides of the game, defending and attacking. I feel this is where Kerry have made most strides in recent years.
We all know what they can bring to the table as an attacking threat - quality play, quick hands, not too many touches on the ball and free-flowing football. Then add in the individual class of the two men down the spine of that attack – O’Shea and David Clifford.
If you could hand-pick the attributes you’d want for your own players in both of those positions, you wouldn’t be far off an exact model player with both of those lads – speed, power, size, athleticism, decision-making, firepower, all topped off with a large sprinkling of x-factor.
Despite all of that, for me it’s the players around the edges whose work rate and intensity make a huge difference to the team.
We all know what Derry are going to bring to the table on Sunday. It will be a possession-based approach, they will look to control the pace of the game, control the clock, and work off overloads in the first and middle third to create incisions for scoring opportunities. Then they’ll just start the process all over again. That’s what Derry do.
But for me there is a big question here: will Derry’s challenge be real? Can they bring this game down to the wire? What if Kerry cut through the Ulster champions? What would the ramifications of that be?
It would certainly make Derry stop and think. Galway cut them open at this stage last year and Dublin cut through them in the Division Two league final this season, so if Kerry were to do the same, would that be the beginning of the end of Derry’s game plan? Could they survive getting exposed at Croke Park again?
Then, the bigger picture, where would two massive victories on the bounce leave Kerry and football generally? What if Dublin’s circling of the wagons this season doesn’t work?
Not taking anything away from Monaghan, but most people expect Kerry and Dublin to be in the final. But what happens if, despite Dublin’s big push, Kerry prevail and even possibly do so in a rampant fashion in the final?
Will we then be talking this autumn about a green and gold wave? Will we be looking at a Kerry team capable of handling any system and who have no clear challenger to their reign? Could we be looking at another decade of dominance by a single county?
It would have been very painful for Dublin last year watching Kerry lift Sam. That is why they have regrouped in the manner they have done over the course of the winter, bringing everything and everybody to the fight in 2023.
Obviously, Kerry are striving to win the All-Ireland again. But if Kerry want to win it, there is a sense Dublin must win it in order to stem the Kerry tide. If Kerry win again, does the dam break entirely?
There are only three games and a handful of weeks left in the championship, but for me what happens within those contests could have severe ramifications for where the dominance and power base of football might lie in the years ahead.
