Laide and Kerry working hard to recover that winning feeling

Pa Laide takes his place in the Kerry line-up for tomorrow's Church & General NFL Division Two A match against Louth after a year he'd rather forget. Almost 12 months ago, he was celebrating the league and All-Ireland double and his first All Star. The year that followed has stripped away all three distinctions.

Injury was at the heart of his personal problems on the pitch. A chronic injury to the sacral joint flared up, hampering the blistering pace that made his wing play second only to Maurice Fitzgerald's peerless year as a contribution to the championship-winning attack.

Clearly short of match fitness, he had a disappointing match in the Munster semi-final against Cork, eventually being substituted. "I was always playing catch-up with Martin Cronin," he recalls.

Looking back at the year and the disappointment it brought, it's easy to forget that Kerry retained their provincial title and went within a point of Kildare in the All-Ireland semi-final. "Kildare were there for the taking but too many of us played poorly, and it would have been an injustice if we had won," says Laide.

He puts fatigue at the top of the list of reasons for Kerry's decline. "I suppose we were putting in such an effort from September 1996 to September 1997 that it was very hard to put in the same commitment and effort after that. Then you had things like the selectors changing, and the Hassetts (brothers Mike and Liam) dropping out, one or two suffering a loss of form or injuries. Any of those things would be a disruption, but when you get all three together, you're in trouble."

Nowhere was the difficulty facing the county more pronounced than in the league when, for the first time since relegation and promotion were introduced nearly 30 years ago, Kerry slipped out of the top flight after a terrible display against Dublin in March.

"We started (the NFL) well," says Laide, "and won our first two games, beating Cavan and Wexford. We should have beaten Sligo in Tralee. If we had, we'd now be in Division One B rather than in Division Two A. Winning an All-Ireland makes you a more experienced team, but your confidence still takes a hammering when things start to go wrong.

"In fairness to Paidi, he kept telling us we had to work at our game. After you win an All-Ireland, teams see your strengths and your pattern and you have to be in even better shape the following year. Maybe we tried too hard and trained too hard, maybe we did too much work too soon just after Christmas, but it didn't happen for us. We worked hard, but the luck wasn't there."

The problem of their lowly league position was compounded two weeks ago when they travelled to Roscommon to face one of the counties most in contention for promotion. Having lost, Kerry can afford no more slip-ups.

"We have to win all our matches and hope that the others slip up. We would be desperately disappointed not to get to the knockout stages. The turning point for us in '97 was winning the league. It gave us confidence and the selectors confidence."

The selection panel was another problem for Kerry last year, with Paidi O Se losing all four selectors at the start of the year. Laide says that the replacements couldn't be blamed for needing time to settle to the task.

"If you look at '97, the selection committee would be the first to admit that they made mistakes in 1996. You can be sure the current selectors saw things in training and on the field that they'll change this year."

Kerry have appointed John Crowley of Glenflesk as captain of the senior football team. A substitute on the All-Ireland winning team of last year, Crowley made a major impact at full forward this year and was nominated for an All Star this week.

The replay of the Offaly senior hurling final between St Rynagh's and Seir Kieran, scheduled for tomorrow, has been called off following an emergency meeting of the County Board in Tullamore last night.

Seir Kieran were opposed to playing the replay without their key midfielder, Joe Dooley.

A proposal was put to last night's meeting that the replay take place next Saturday if possible, with the winners representing Offaly against Kilkeegan of Wicklow the following day in the Leinster club championship.