No regrets for Kennelly as date with destiny is secured

THERE MUST have been several moments over the course of the summer when Tadhg Kennelly sat at home in Listowel and questioned the sense of his decision to leave it all behind.

The fame and fortune that comes with being one of the best players in the Australian Football League, the apartment on Bondi Beach, and of course the weather, which even at its worst in Sydney was an awful lot better than back home.

First there was Kerry’s sad and hurtful exit to Cork in the Munster championship. Then there was the broken bone in his right hand which kept him out of the opening qualifiers. And through all this, Kerry’s form looked dodgy at best while at the same time rumours of disharmony spread way beyond the echoes of the McGillycuddy Reeks.

Only when he came on as a sub against Dublin did Kennelly’s hopes and dreams of playing in an All-Ireland final with Kerry take any real shape. Yesterday, in his first senior championship start in Croke Park, they became a reality, and Kennelly says now that even if they win or lose against Cork in three weeks time there will never be any regrets.

“It’s fantastic,” he said. “I don’t think it’s probably sunk in yet. Right now we’re all just tired after that, but it’s great to be in the final. I did put so much into this by coming home, and it’s been a success, either way, already. Whether we win or lose in the final.”

Still only 28, there is already talk that Kennelly might return to the AFL, and his club, the Sydney Swans, are certainly keeping the invitation open. But that’s talk for another day. We wanted to know what the talk was in the Kerry dressing-room at half-time, when Meath closed the gap to two points, and briefly and suddenly looked poised for an upset.

“Well no we weren’t worried, not really,” said Kennelly. “I suppose in the Dublin game we had everything go our way. Going into this game, playing against Meath, we knew it was going to be different. A more physical game. And especially with the conditions out there today as well, a wet, greasy ball. It’s never easy to play good football in those conditions.

“But we knew if we kept going and kept going we had the footballers and had the physical players out there to match them as well. And we knew that we could break them.”

As it turned out, Kennelly played a key role in breaking Meath, delivering a superb pass into Tommy Walsh in the first minute of the second half, which the young Kerins O’Rahillys man promptly caught and buried in the Meath net. Kennelly went on to score two points from play himself, the first of which extended Kerry’s lead to 2-5 to 0-4 and effectively ended the affair as a contest.

“I suppose we were lucky in a way that we got a goal at the start of the second half,” he added.

“But we also changed up our game-plan a bit, and it worked a bit better for us in the second half. Because it just wasn’t a day to be putting in nice, special ball like we did against Dublin.”

Kennelly is not the sort of player who panics, and that’s going to stand to Kerry come the final in three weeks time. In fact, it’s hard to get Kennelly too worked up about anything, not even the remarkably slippery surface the players were presented with in Croke Park.

“Well, personally it was fine for me. It definitely played a lot better the last day, against Dublin. But, of course, there was no rain that day. I think people forget as well that as players get tired they lose their footing easier, the legs are fatigued. It’s not always about the pitch not being good enough. It’s about players losing their sharpness, and maybe getting a little lazy on their feet. And that’s when you get a lot of players slipping over, because they’re fatigued.”

Ultimately, he says, Kerry were prepared for a more physical contest than they got against Dublin and always expected to find themselves grinding out a result.

“It was still great to come through the way we did. Again, we got everything our own way against Dublin, but I think the way we had to play today, a more physical game, in wet conditions, maybe shows we can play it both ways.”

Against Cork in three weeks’ time they may well need to play it both ways on the same day.