McEnaney looks for inside track on champions

Gavin Cummiskeyhears from the Monaghan manager about cracking the Kerry code

The GAA is a vast beast. So it comes as no surprise to learn an unfamiliar championship fixture like Monaghan and Kerry has seen the light of day before. From their four previous encounters, dating back to 1930, Kerry are three up with one split pot.

The most memorable meeting was the 1985 All-Ireland semi-final that ended in a draw. Monaghan people remember it as an opportunity lost, but then again many a non-Kerry native will have had similar feelings of "one that got away" after a close encounter with the Kingdom.

They say if not for a fortuitous Ger Power goal - he gathered a rebound off the post - Monaghan would have made the final against Dublin. Current Louth manager Eamonn McEneaney landed a late 45 to give Monaghan another run at the buffalo's hide.

Kerry won the replay by five.

Anyway, the present Monaghan manager, Séamus McEnaney, was there. Just as he'll be again on Sunday when Monaghan attempt to prevent what many would deem the perfect denouement: Dublin v Kerry at the business end of the championship.

"The 1985 Monaghan team was a great team," says McEnaney. "The problem was they probably met the best Kerry team of all time. Monaghan probably had more chances to win it in the replay. After 10 minutes we were dominating the game but just couldn't get enough scores."

National League champions that same year, they added a second Ulster title in 1988 before collapsing in the face of a reinvigorated Cork.

Then they were gone; swallowed up by ruthless neighbours when the Ulster revolution took hold of Gaelic football in the early 1990s.

"From '88 until 2005 it can be considered very lean times in Monaghan football," says McEnaney. "Sometimes the players were there but their attitude just wasn't what it takes to be an intercounty player.

"The great thing about this group of players is their attitude is top class."

Any team that removes Down and Derry before running Tyrone to two points in the Ulster final must be considered a force.

McEnaney has been hard at it for three years. The opening season yielded a first national title in 20 years when a last-gasp Paul Finlay free was misjudged by a Meath defender and dropped over the line to decide the Division Two league final.

The outpouring of emotion by Monaghan folk that day reflected the county's appetite for success.

The players' initial goal this season was an Ulster title. With Donegal on the horizon in the qualifiers the disappointment of the Tyrone defeat threatened to destabilise matters.

McEnaney turned to Jack O'Connor. The former Kerry manager had turned similar disappointment - defeat to Cork in last year's Munster final - into All-Ireland success.

"The toughest challenge of all was to build Monaghan up after we were beaten in the Ulster final," says McEnaney. "The only reason for bringing in Jack O'Connor was to give the fellas a bit of a perk-up - somebody that was in the same situation the past few years.

"It was a 45-minute chat with the players the week after the match. Basically it was to convince the Monaghan players that there was life after losing the Ulster final."

Donegal wilted in the face of their in-form attack, now spearheaded by the converted full back Vincent Corey. At half-time in the Ulster final Corey was redeployed to the sharp end in what initially appeared a desperate last throw of the dice. He changed the game.

McEnaney admits Corey's fielding and power play were key in the 2-12 to 1-7 demolition of the league champions: "There are a couple of parts to it. Vincent Corey plays for his club at full forward and you can actually play him anywhere.

"At half-time we felt we weren't winning enough first-phase ball into the full-forward line and Vincent was already on a yellow card and a tick, so it would have been unwise of us to put him back into the full-back line."

Corey is named in defence for Sunday and may actually start there as Monaghan attempt to tame Kerry's Kieran Donaghy.

Either way, McEnaney is acutely conscious of certain hard facts.

"We cannot get away from the fact they are All-Ireland champions, that they have played in the past three All-Ireland finals, that they're the best team in the country.

"We also can't get away from the fact Monaghan have never beaten them in the championship.

"We cannot get away from all those statistics - but when the ball is thrown in on Sunday, for the following 70 minutes whatever's happened in the last 20 years all goes down the swanny."