No bonfires or school visits as Kerry continue pleasant platonic relationship with the League
Related Articles
It was one of those mellow, spring-like days programmed to skirt the truth.
Croke Park without people, you see, becomes a house of illusion. It drains the colour out of things. You could all but hear a letter plop onto a carpeted hall on Clonliffe Road yesterday as Kerry and Derry went about their business. So we got a League final with all the emotional tumult of a fire drill in a library.
"Flake away lads," shrugged Jack O'Connor to the assembled media when he was done with the back-slaps.
There'll be no bonfires, no school visits, no speeches from trailers. Kerry's relationship with the League is strictly platonic. No giddiness, no sinful clinches, no repercussions. Just play the damn thing and keep a strong gallop towards summer.
Still, little portents are there to warm them now. Kerry's previous four National League wins have all prefaced an autumn plunder of the Sam Maguire. Winning in April is a deposit you can be glad of come September.
"Yerra, we wanted to finish off with a win," said O'Connor. "I thought we played good football in the League and it would have been a pity if we didn't win out the competition.
"What am I most pleased about? Winning the game without emptying the tank. I think there might be a bit more in us. I didn't think there was fierce cut and thrust in the game lads to be honest. You know, twasn't do or die stuff at all."
Any reason for that?
"Ah look lads, the championship is the big one. People have their training set up towards peaking in the championship. That's just the way it is. So, you'll never get the real cut and thrust in a League game."
An audience might have helped. The official attendance figure of 20,545 for a double-header featuring four likely championship heavy-hitters amounted to a resounding public rebuke of the decision to bring the games to Croke Park and ensured a risible atmosphere. Opera wouldn't sound great in the desert, would it?
Kerry went through the gears without ever looking especially animated. Derry pressed and probed with resolutely modest ambition. It made for a kind of spiritual stalemate. Donnacha Walsh's 10th minute goal, beautifully engineered by Kieran Donaghy and Micheal Quirke, was the one pure grace note of the day.
Beyond that, it was a game all but short of a pulse.
Losing, mind, would have been unpalatable to Kerry. Last season, they lost three finals and, as O'Connor surmised -- albeit he wasn't party to any one of them -- a fourth "and you'd be maybe thinking there was a bit of a jinx on you or something. Look I know the best thing for keeping fellas happy is winning matches. There's nothing better. It's a good habit."
You could see enough of 'Gooch', Tommy Walsh and Donaghy yesterday to know that Kerry's will probably be the marquee attack come summer. Yet, Derry were shorn of maybe five men likely to start against Monaghan in Celtic Park on May 24, so the concession of 1-15 was hardly chronic.
As Damien Cassidy observed, "There's different types of defeats. Championships are bad defeats. Leagues are not bad defeats. 'Cos our games are about championship football. Make no mistake, when you come down into Croke Park to play a National League final, you certainly want to win it.
"But in this league, we needed to put together a strong panel that would be able to cope with injuries. We introduced nine new players to the panel and have used 31 in total during the league. I think our position has been very much validated in that respect."
Cassidy talked of August and September being the months that he hoped would shed a defining light on Derry. "Kerry and Tyrone are seen as being the top two teams in the country," he said. "The question is: 'Do we think we are good enough to push on and be here in August and September?'
"The answers have to be provided later in the year. But is the quality there? I think it is."
They probably were not helped yesterday by a freak collision between the Bradley brothers, Paddy and Eoin, that led to the former taking a temporary break to clear the dials in his head. Yet there was a sense of Kerry calmly running through the low gears.
Desperately seeking to engender some semblance of epoch afterwards, some journalists launched into a gentle grilling of O'Connor's substitutions. With 'blood' replacements spinning in and out like skittles, had Kerry possibly violated the six sub rule?
"Think we used seven today," said Jack with impressive equanimity. Then he clarified things. "I didn't know for a while there was it legal or what. Could you use another one if another fella got hurt? Could you use eight?"
It was pointed out to him that Kerry had, in actuality, made eight changes in total.
"Was there?" he replied grinning with pure roguery. "I was getting worried there for a while. I was asking (Pat) McEneaney there on the sideline were we in trouble. But he said t'was okay. I didn't know myself in the end. Anyway, I think we're okay, they'll leave us the cup."
One of the last acts saw 'Gooch' wilfully neglect a goal chance, lobbing a compassionate point. It spoke volumes for the contest.
Cork won the curtain-raiser with five points to spare over Monaghan and, with Kerry cuteness, O'Connor sought to build them into a team of soaring Gullivers.
"I saw about 10 minutes of the game," said Jack. "Jeez they're a big team, that's what struck me about them. They're mountains of men. T'will be very interesting now in six weeks time. We presume 'tis Cork we'll be playing in Killarney.
"They definitely look to have more scoring potential this year. And I don't think they fear Kerry at this stage. They've given as good as they got now over the last two years. With the success of their U-21s, they'll feel that their time is nigh."
Summer can't come soon enough.
- Vincent Hogan
