MUNSTER SFC FIRST ROUNDAS IS their undoubted preference, Kerry enter the championship flying softly under the radar at the spiritual home of hurling this Sunday.
Tipp provide the opposition for Jack O’Connor’s evolving team, as they do for the Limerick hurlers, making the green and gold footballers mere appetisers for the Semple gallery.
Munster’s defending champions should be showered and halfway home when the noise decibels begin to rise some time after 4pm.
It still remains an interesting outing for Kerry observers, even if they are expected to overwhelm a Tipperary team stumbling off a disastrous league campaign.
Tom O’Sullivan is the latest from a great era to step off the treadmill, while Marc Ó Sé’s hamstring “tweak” and Donnacha Walsh’s troublesome groin leaves a potentially brittle defensive six on view in Thurles.
But Kerry are a vicious proposition on the rebound, expected to dismiss all comers one season on from their shocking All-Ireland final defeat to Dublin.
The evidence comes in their response to Tyrone’s threat to dominate the previous decade’s football landscape with knee-jerk All-Ireland wins in 2004, 2006 and 2009.
“Ah sure, I don’t know about being stronger than ever but we hope to be competitive every year,” said O’Connor yesterday. “It is a balancing act. We’re giving a few younger guys their go on Sunday. There has to be a new face in the full-back line due to the retirement of Tom and a few young forwards have been showing up well.
“These players need to get a feel for championship. We need to find new players and keep the core of experience players there. It is hard to get the balance right sometimes, and you don’t know if you have it right until you are in the middle of the championship.”
That’s exactly when O’Connor and Kerry truly uncovered Kieran Donaghy in 2004.
“The best bet is to go with what you see in front of your eyes in training,” he continued. “We see the young fellas going well in training so we’ll give them their head on Sunday.”
The young heads of corner forward Patrick Curtin and wing back Peter Crowley will be sent forth on Sunday with Ó Sé expected to be fit for a semi-final against Cork on June 10th.
There has been some talk of O’Sullivan’s intercounty career being resurrected but O’Connor knew that ship had sailed on witnessing Rathmore in action recently.
“Tom is one of the great corner backs. I watched him in club games of late and knew the game was up. He didn’t seem to be enjoying the football and if you are not enjoying it, well, it is hard to retain the competitive edge.”
So Kerry move on. In Ó Sé’s absence 28-year-old Daniel Bohan shifts to the square’s edge to cover Tipp’s minor sensation from last season, Michael Quinlivan. Shane Enright and Killian Young are the corner backs.
All told, the changes heap more pressure on the remaining stalwarts to perform. We asked O’Connor about the two undisputed modern greats at his disposal. Colm Cooper has returned from a spring hibernation needed to recover from his Dr Crokes exertions.
“Colm has had a long time at it with both club and county over the last couple of years. He took a month off there after the club scene finished and seems reinvigorated. There is a freshness to him now. We are expecting a good year out of him.”
And what of the dark featured Lixnaw mosquito, who has provided the drum beat to all of Kerry’s recent successful tilts at capturing Sam Maguire?
“Paul Galvin’s been having a very good year,” said O’Connor of the 32-year-old forward. “I think he has got his appetite right this year so he is another we are expecting big things from. Paul had a great league and we feel it is laid out for him.”
Galvin is joined in the half forward line by Darran O’Sullivan and Kieran O’Leary.
There is a spark added to a hurling day by Kerry’s arrival in Thurles. It is hardly unfamiliar territory as they beat Tipp there in 2010 and the underage graduates also have knowledge of the field.
For O’Connor, of course, there was his time as Páidi Ó Sé’s lieutenant in 2001 when Maurice Fitzgerald perfectly placed sideline strike bisected the Dublin uprights.
“I remember that, yeah,” he says. “Thurles is a great pitch to play football. Next to Croke Park, it is the best in the country. We like to play on a big open pitch so it should suit our style.”
O’Connor’s present day lieutenant, Ger O’Keeffe, isn’t long bursting the bubble of the overall occasion.
“We are not going to see the hurling, we are going to play our first game of the championship and we are taking that very seriously,” said O’Keeffe. “If there is a hurling game on afterwards, so be it.” Kerry don’t do romanticism, well, not in the month of May.
Kerry(SFC v Tipp): B Kealy; S Enright, D Bohan, K Young; T Ó Sé, E Brosnan, P Crowley; A Maher, B Sheehan; P Galvin, Darran O'Sullivan, K O'Leary; C Cooper, Declan O'Sullivan, P Curtin.
DEAL: Beat petrol prices
WITH both defending champions on view, the Munster Council estimates a crowd of up to 30,000 at Semple Stadium for Sunday’s double header. Kerry face Tipperary in the football at 2pm with the provincial hurling champions hosting John Allen’s Limerick at 4pm.
Over 13,000 tickets have been sold by yesterday with those numbers expected to swell due to the favourable weather forecast this weekend.
“The main complaint from travelling supporters has been the price of petrol, which has increased by 106 percent,” said deputy Munster chief executive Enda McGuane. “As a result, we contacted Iarnród Éireann and put together the combination package.”
This means Limerick supporters can get a return train and terrace ticket for €25. This increases to €33 for the uncovered stand and €37 for the covered. Just under 6,000 fans attended the last Tipperary versus Kerry football game in Thurles in 2010.
