Darragh Ó Sé: Failure to take their chances brings the harshest lesson for Kerry

On the drive home from Páirc Uí Chaoimh on Saturday night, the one thing I could take solace in was that I had no firing squad to face in Ballyvourney before crossing the border.

Usually after a result like that, Ballyvourney would be the last garrison you’d have to pass through before getting back onto Kerry soil and there’d be crowds outside the pubs delighted to send you on your way.

But on a winter’s Sunday night in the middle of lockdown, Ballyvourney was dark and quiet and surreal, just like everywhere else. At least the pandemic gave me that much. After that though, it’s slim pickings.

Kerry’s championship is over after one match. The last time that happened was the year before I made my senior debut. That will tell you (a) how long ago it was and (b) how much of a panic it must have put the county in. I don’t think there’s any need for panic after this one but it will stick in the memory for a long time. First and foremost as a lesson in attitude.

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If you’ve ever played cards, you know that the first thing you need to do is establish what the game is. It doesn’t matter whether you’re playing for big money or a box of matches, you don’t start until you know what you’re playing. Is it Texas Hold ’Em? Five card stud? Will we just have a game of 45? Once you have that set in your mind, you go about playing your game.

I was in the overflow section of the press box on Saturday night and from where I was sitting, it was fairly clear that the two teams had different ideas about what game was being played. Cork cottoned on to the fact that this was a one-shot championship way faster than Kerry did. When you are the underdogs, a close game suits you because it leaves you within striking distance. Cork recognised that and they never once felt like they were out of the game.

Kerry looked like they went out with the wrong attitude. They played within themselves the whole night. They showed very little sign of knowing the kind of game they were in.

You would never have guessed looking at them that they knew that losing would mean the end of the road. They played like they were trying to steer the game out of danger rather than going and putting it out of Cork’s reach. They got caught in the end and suffered the consequences.

Peter Keane has been taking a lot of flak in Kerry since Sunday but I think that’s the wrong way of looking at it. The main thrust of the chat down here is that Kerry’s defensive set-up is to blame for the defeat and that it was too conservative and ultimately it got what it deserved. But to me, that’s attacking the wrong problem.

I am no lover of putting 14 men behind the ball but that’s not the reason Kerry are out of the championship. We can moan and crib all we like about it not being how Kerry are supposed to play football but that’s a different argument altogether. It has very little relevance to the losing of this particular game.

It comes down to attitude. Kerry just didn't look like they truly realised what a battle they were in

The final score was Cork 1-12 Kerry 0-13. And I can see why somebody might think that a total of 0-13 is exactly what you’d expect from a team with so many men behind the ball. But the system had nothing to do with it. The reality is that Kerry had a world of chances to win on Sunday but they missed far too many of them.

Scoring chances

David Clifford, Sean O’Shea and Tony Brosnan had 17 scoring chances and ended up with seven points between them. Clifford missed a 14-metre free and a 20-metre free. O’Shea missed a 20-metre free and a 45. These lads will be playing for Kerry for the next 10 or 15 years and not have a shooting day as bad as that again.

We can give out for the whole of the winter about how Kerry set up. But on Sunday, over 90 minutes of football, they kept Cork to 19 shots. Meanwhile, up at the other end, Kerry took 29 shots. I’m not a great man for maths but even I can see that more or less means that for every two shots Cork took, Kerry took three. That should be enough to win you any game.

Kerry should have won, plain and simple. They were two points up in the first half, two up again in the second half and then twice in extra-time. They were leading in the 70th minute and the 90th minute. But because their shooting was off-beam, they didn’t put Cork away. In those circumstances, you can be shocked by losing to a last-minute goal but you can’t be surprised.

The question that has to be asked is why was the shooting so poor? Conditions were a factor but they were the same for both sides. Cork had five wides, Kerry had 12. Cork scored eight points from 10 placed balls, Kerry scored two from six. One team was tuned in when it came to taking their shots, the other looked like they presumed another one would come along even if they missed.

It comes down to attitude. Kerry just didn’t look like they truly realised what a battle they were in. At the second-half water break, the Cork team was right down below me and it was obvious that they were completely tuned in. Ronan McCarthy and Cian O’Neill were making their points but it was all very calm, to the point and focused.

Meanwhile, down at the other 45, it sounded like panic stations. Peter Keane and Tommy Griffin were shouting and gesticulating away. You could hear their voices echo around Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Kerry were only a point down but you could tell that the management had a true sense of the severity of the situation. They were like a jockey who has to start giving his horse a reminder to wake him up going into the last mile.

But you have to hand it to Cork, they gave themselves every chance. Their attitude was spot on

And to be fair to them, they went out and kicked four of the next five points. Killian Spillane came off the bench and kicked two of them, Seán O’Shea burst into the game and kicked a long free followed by a fine score off his right. Spillane and Jack Sherwood were to the fore in this spell – they had a different grasp of the situation than the players who were on the pitch from the start.

The misses in extra-time were the real killer. David Clifford has won many more games for Kerry than he will ever lose for them but superstardom comes with responsibility. The point he scored in extra-time was unbelievable but so were his two misses. In a poor, tight game with a monsoon sweeping in, you have to have the awareness to take your mark when it comes and you can’t be missing 14-metre frees.

Those are two handy points that he’d normally score every day of the week. You could pull him out of bed and make him do it and he’d score them in his pyjamas and slippers. The only explanation for not taking the mark and not kicking the free is a loss of concentration. A player who is in the right frame of mind eats up those chances. He makes sure of them because the consequences of not doing it are so severe. But in the moment, he didn’t make sure of them.

Kerry were doing that kind of thing all along and it kept Cork in the game. People laughed at me all those years when I gave Cork a chance of beating Kerry but this is exactly the sort of scenario that I was always wary of. There’s too much history between the two counties to just wave your hand at it and say the other crowd have no chance.

Fair distance

In reality, Cork don’t have Kerry’s quality. I don’t think it’s disrespectful to say that. Kerry won the league and took the Dubs to a replay in last year’s All-Ireland. Cork are just getting out of Division Three. They’re making the best of themselves and McCarthy gave six debuts on Sunday so they clearly have some good stuff coming through. But even though Kerry lost, I still thought there was a fair distance between the sides on Sunday.

But you have to hand it to Cork, they gave themselves every chance. Their attitude was spot on. They lived off scraps a bit but sometimes you have to do that. When it’s that kind of game, you’ll only survive if you’re dogged and well-drilled and disciplined.

Cork were quicker to the breaks, which again shows that they understood the chance that was on offer to them. Late on in normal time, Seán Powter was blocked as he tried to kick the equaliser but even though there were three Kerry players around him, he was still able to dive onto the breaking ball and buy himself a free when Gavin White left a hand in. It was probably a soft enough free but if Powter doesn’t win the break, Kerry go through to the Munster final. Cork won those breaks all night and stayed alive in the game.

I'm convinced that if you played that game 10 times, Kerry would win nine of them

Most crucially of all, they took their chances. Five wides in an hour and a half on a night like that is seriously good shooting. It tells you two things even if you didn’t watch a single minute of the match. First, they hardly ever took a shot that wasn’t on and second, they made sure that the right players were shooting. That shows patience, it shows understanding of the game plan, it shows a team that is collectively tuned into the terms of engagement.

Even with all of that, the thing to remember here is that Kerry should have won. I’m convinced that if you played that game 10 times, Kerry would win nine of them. Peter Keane and his selectors can only do so much – it’s down to the players to go and win the game.

If the defensive system was the reason for Kerry’s defeat, I’d be the first to call them out for it. But that’s not what cost them the game. Kerry missed too much and Cork refused to go away. In those circumstances, a dropping ball in the square can catch any team out.

Kerry aren’t the first team to find that out the hard way and they won’t be the last.