Champions caught out by injuries

Some time ago Joe Kernan got a cautionary piece of advice from someone who knows what it's like to defend an All-Ireland title in Ulster, by Seán Moran.

Derry manager Eamonn Coleman also knew what it felt like to lose at the first hurdle the following year although he had no qualifier system to cushion the fall - instead he got rail-roaded out of the job later that summer.

"Eamonn told me that when problems come, they come all of a sudden. And it's injuries not tiredness or fitness that's the problem. Without a shadow of doubt I was nervous. Easy matches are only easy when they're over. There was the chance for Monaghan to do what they might never do again, beat the All-Ireland champions in Ulster."

And so it came to pass in Clones at the weekend. The Ulster title went and now Kernan and his team must wind themselves up for the All-Ireland qualifiers in four weeks. Injuries played a role. Captain and powerhouse Kieran McGeeney was unable to play and three other first choice players were also missing.

"Very few teams could cope with losing three or four All Stars. In fairness to Colm Coyle he had a lot of young lads who had done well in the under-21s. They had nothing to lose and were quicker and sharper. For 10 minutes we played to our full potential and created three chances but went for goals instead of fisting it over the bar."

There had been muttering about some of the players appearing to be rested on the bench as if to keep them for sterner tests. Kernan rejects the insinuation that Monaghan weren't taken seriously.

"Ronan Clarke hadn't played since September. Gerry McEntee said that he wouldn't be right for eight weeks and the eight weeks were just up yesterday. Oisin McConville has had hamstring and back problems, which changed his training regime. It was only last week that he played a match in training.

"Kieran McGeeney will be 100 per cent in two weeks. I didn't put him on because I didn't want - at best - to scrape through the match and lose the captain for the rest of the season. He'll be ready now for the qualifiers.

"To date we haven't jumped as high as we would have wanted. We didn't put pressure on players during the League. You can't go full tilt all year around. Professional players can't do that.

"Many of the players have already been on the phone to me today. They're angry at what they allowed to happen. Over the next two weeks we'll pick the boys up and step it up. We'll be sharper."

Whereas he agrees with Eamonn Coleman that injuries are the one factor most likely to derail a team's campaign, Kernan also accepts that defending champions can encounter motivational difficulties.

"It's all about hunger. Any team that played us in the first round would be hungrier because everyone's hunger would be greater than ours after last year. Now the tables have turned and we'll have it back. There were a lot of sick men in our dressing-room yesterday. That was good. If they weren't sick we might as well pack our bags and go on holidays."

Meanwhile, one of the most impressive of the performers in the weekend's other major shock, Limerick's defeat of Cork, John Galvin was in Dublin to receive the Vodafone Footballer of the Month award. The county's centre fielder was chosen for his performances in helping his county gain promotion to Division One for the first time.

"We believed we could beat them," he said at the awards ceremony. "We always come good in the last 10 minutes even if we don't always take the chances. If we could stay with them until the last 10 minutes we thought we'd have a good chance of winning I don't think any of us thought we'd win by 10 points.

"Clare will be really up for the semi-final and if we win in all likelihood we'll face Kerry and they're the team to beat, the best footballing side in Munster."

At yesterday's reception Paul Codd was presented with the Vodafone Hurler of the Month award. Recovering from a broken finger, the Wexford captain said that whereas he wasn't "over-happy" with the injury, he expected to be playing against Offaly in next month's Leinster semi-final.