Shadow boxing time over for Kerry as they knuckle down to real business

Perched on a treatment bed, in a small physio’s room at the end of a short corridor in Austin Stack Park, Jack O’Connor answered questions about Kerry’s first league game: a one-point defeat to Derry.

Given this turn of events, O’Connor was asked if he would disturb the Clifford brothers from their winter hibernation. Outside, a chilling wind had been joined by rain, for nuisance. There were four days left in January.

In the league, importance is not a matter of mutual consent. Everyone invents their own significance. Derry fielded 14 of the players who had eyeballed Kerry in a titanic All-Ireland semi-final six months earlier and Kerry sent out a team that reeked of the McGrath Cup.

The off-the-peg assertion was that Derry had “laid down a marker,” but off-the-peg assertions are a genetically modified alternative to critical thinking and the league is partial to that diet. Derry’s “marker” dissolved like chalk. Their season went all Hollywood and then it went all EastEnders.

Light finally goes out on Dublin’s remarkable era

---

GAA reveal All-Ireland football semi-final fixture details

---

Five things we learned from the GAA weekend: Kerry talk of purists when it suits them

---

Kerry lost by 10 points to Dublin at the end of February and retreated into a silhouette. They booked a warm-weather training camp in Portugal for the same week as the league final, content that there wouldn’t be a clash.

Since the Dublin game four months ago, though, they are the only unbeaten team in the country: three league wins followed by five wins in what is loosely called ‘the championship’. They have reached Croke Park at the end of June without leaving a trace, unstressed.

In ice-skating, marks are awarded according to the difficulty of the routine attempted; those marks were not available to Kerry. They won the least competitive of all provincial championships and finished top of the most lopsided round robin group. The only way they could have made a wave in the championship was by losing.

“The Kerry lads will be saying in the media, ‘We’ve been tuned in, we’ve been focused,’ but they’re going into games knowing you’re going to win them in second gear,” says Darren O’Sullivan, the former Kerry player and Newstalk analyst.

“You’re not really at the races. You’re probably not as tight as you can be. You’re probably not running backwards as hard as you probably should at times. It’s just human nature.

“Most of the games have been boring to watch and you’re kind of forcing yourself to watch them. You have these teams fighting tooth and nail to be in the All-Ireland [round robin] series and then when they get there they’re trying not to get beaten by 15 points. The games were torture to watch.”

Kerry have won their five championship games so far by an average of 10 points. Can any patterns be deduced?

They have deepened their roster of scorers and consciously spread the load. Tom O’Sullivan, their marauding corner back, has been a regular scorer for years, but this year his 10 points from play is equal to Seanie O’Shea. From numbers two to nine they have generated more threat.

“Look at the goal against Louth that Tadhg Morley [Kerry defender] scored and look at the goal that Diarmuid O’Connor scored,” says Sylvester Hennessy, a former analyst with the Kerry team and sports editor of Kerry’s Eye.

“For O’Connor’s goal, Jason Foley had the shot that was saved – so the full back turned up in the full forward position. For Morley’s goal [his first in the championship] he linked up with Seanie O’Shea right on top of the goal.”

A couple of debilitating trends have hung around in Kerry’s system, though, like a low blood count. There was a spike in David Clifford’s output against Meath when he clocked up 2-1 from play, but his overall numbers have been down. Not alarmingly. Last year, he accounted for more than a fifth of Kerry’s total from play in the championship; this year it’s about a sixth. When his scores from play and dead balls are collated his percentage of Kerry’s total is steady away at about 75%. His performances, though, have not been sparkling or explosive.

Until the last two games in the round robin series, Kerry were on a run of just two goals in seven matches. By the beginning of June Colm Keys pointed out that Con O’Callaghan had scored as many goals this season than the Kerry players had mustered between them. Was that a fault in their hard drive or could it be fixed by turning the computer on and off? In last year’s championship they had scored 11 goals in their first five games; this year, that total had collapsed to four.

“You can say they’re taking the pressure off Clifford,” says Dara Ó Cinnéide, the former Kerry captain and broadcaster, “but I would say they will be demanding a certain amount off Clifford from here on in. All the talk is that Kerry are waiting and waiting for David and the boys [in the forward line] to hit form. In fairness, though, Seanie O’Shea has maintained a consistently high level of form all year. He’s gone about his business from game to game.”

O’Shea has spent more time in the full-forward line this year, though not exclusively. With Clifford and Paul Geaney in that neighbourhood too, Kerry might have been expected to play the ball inside earlier. That hasn’t been the case so far; it might be a romantic notion.

“We’ve a tendency to go cross field with our passing rather than going direct,” says Ambrose O’Donovan, the former Kerry captain, who has been summarising games on Radio Kerry for more than 20 years.

“That kind of maddens me and it maddens the Kerry supporters. It’s one thing if a team can’t do that, but I’ve watched them in warm-ups doing that drill, hitting 50-yard passes, and they’re comfortable doing it.”

Once upon a time that would have been a philosophical sticking point for Kerry. But the modern game promotes patience and restraint and in-game statistical benchmarks and Kerry have learned to conform. In their history Kerry have chased the bottom line, above all else.

At the other end, Kerry are consistently faced by a blanket defence. Clifford is often double-teamed. The scoring zone is a gridlocked space. As a counter-offensive they needed to develop a variety of threats and other layers of subtlety.

A conscious investment has been made in Tony Brosnan as a playmaker. Brosnan has a corner forward’s sensibility and Kerry have more abrasive options at wing forward, but Brosnan gives them vision and nuance and creativity. Derry will test their commitment to that plan.

In terms of personnel, Kerry have done some interior decorating without knocking any walls. Jack Barry went to Australia and Joe O’Connor took his place at centrefield. Kerry might have one of the top five centrefield partnerships in the country, not one of the top three.

Graham O’Sullivan has been haunted by injuries this year, just as Brian Ó Beaglaoich was last year, but Ó Beaglaoich is fit now and flying at wing back. In the last two games alone he has scored six points.

“He was a loss last year,” says Ó Cinnéide. “When the shit hit the fan in the 2022 All-Ireland semi-final against Dublin he stood up in those 10 minutes. He made himself available to Shane Ryan. Brian Fenton is a master of shutting down kick-outs, and he had all bases covered, but he couldn’t pin down Brian.

“They need him. He doesn’t have an All-Star, and he might never get one, but they need that 7/10 player playing well now. Your 5,6,7 out of 10 performers are all coming into a bit of form.”

Nobody knows Kerry’s ceiling this year. Nobody can say for sure if their ghost season of low-risk, defanged matches will leave them short for Croke Park. O’Sullivan played on the only two Kerry teams beaten in All-Ireland quarter-finals, since that round was introduced in 2001. But no team has won more quarter-finals than Kerry and in many of those years they arrived in Croke Park untested.

“Kerry will be confident, but for no recent reason,” says O’Sullivan. “Just that they’re confident in themselves.”

Ó Cinnéide has a clearer picture in his mind.

“I will be shocked if Kerry are beaten. Derry were outstanding the last day trying to get their form back. But if they beat Kerry on Sunday, it’s Kerry’s fault.”

In Kerry’s year, this is the first marker.

• Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
• Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
• Listen to our Inside Politics podcast for the best political chat and analysis