GAELIC GAMES:NOT LONG after Colm Cooper had made his speech and left the field, manager Jack O'Connor turned his mind to this time last year. Kerry had won a Munster championship defined by a pulsating semi-final draw and win against Cork. Then, they went to Croke Park and were blitzed by Down in what was one of the surprises of the summer. Now, Kerry return to the last eight and O'Connor traced the origins of their problems last year to the lay-off between winning the Munster title and facing Ulster's old aristocrats.
“We played two rounds of club matches last year and four or five fellas came back with knocks,” O’Connor remembered. “And we just didn’t get our training right. We basically only had a week of proper training. Some fellas hadn’t trained for a month. We can’t have that preparation again because it doesn’t work. When you hit Croke Park, it is a massive pitch and you have to have the legs and be right. So if there was a lesson to be learned, that is a critical one. I haven’t much say in it but you do have to think of the clubs as well so there is a round of games next week but then we have three weeks to prepare and that is plenty.”
Conor Counihan was disappointed not to have won a Munster title and admitted Cork’s slow opening to the match took him by surprise. “The fact Kerry were dethroned meant they might have come in with a bit more of an edge. We can analyse it as we like but the reality is that they are the Munster champions. That is sport.
“We were disappointed by our performance in the first half; that we could give away plenty of possession like that. Kerry were moving well but the reality was we had possession and when we came upfield, we turned it over. We gave away soft ball and made poor decisions. That can happen but the fact that so much happened in the one day and the one half is a bit startling.”
Counihan’s immediate concern was for the wellbeing of Ciarán Sheehan who was carried off with a suspected cruciate injury.
Kerry can look forward to a fuller bill of health before their quarter-final. This win left them installed as new favourites for the All-Ireland with the bookmakers.
O’Connor was pleased with the win but is clearly expecting to see those red shirts again. “Sure you have to take it at face value,” he said. “They were coming down as All-Ireland champions. We have a good record here and didn’t want them beating us in our back yard. We were short personnel but we felt the players we had prepared very professionally. Cork were going to have play very well to beat us and that is how it panned out. I wouldn’t be fancying getting Cork in the qualifiers though.”
