WITH the first leg of this year's National League over John Meyler was able to reflect this week on what has to be considered a good start. It was vitally important for the Kingdom not to lose either of their opening two games, if they had it would have made promotion infinitely more difficult, but more importantly it should give the new regime the momentum it needs to build the foundations of a successful season.

" We've two matches played, two matches won, four points ... I'm delighted. I'm delighted with the progess so far. The attitude and the commitment of the players has been fantastic. Once the ground gets harder and we can hurl properly I think we can up it another gear," the Kerry boss noted.

The last two weeks were probably the most difficult that the Kingdom's hurlers will face this year. As the Kerry boss pointed out over the space of nine days he and his players spent four on the road. "It really only dawned on me on Friday morning, you were gone Saturday, Sunday then you had two nights training and you were gone again," he says.

"It's a lot to ask players to do that. You know there are fellas who are working who don't have nine to five jobs, Monday to Friday, who may be depending on overtime, who may be depending on Saturdays. It's a huge burden to ask fellas to do that, but they've done it. They've got huge pride in the Kerry jersey."

The trips to Derry and Mayo also marked arguably the two most difficult onfield assignments of the campaign. "Both of those teams have been in the Christy Ring semifinals in the last two years and Mayo have Pete Finnerty and Martin Brennan there and they're trying to make a go of it. It's always been a bit of a bogey fixture for Kerry above in Mayo. From that point view it was a very valuable lesson," he notes.

Against Mayo Meyler's men looked at times like they were running away with it. The concession of two "sloppy" goals won't have pleased the Kerry boss, but by the same token it means he has something to work on. "We need to pick up on that and clean it up," he says.

The Kerry management team had to rejig their starting line up after it was confirmed that James Godley wouldn't play – "the physio felt that if we played him it would possibly put him out of contention later on," Meyler noted. Eoin Sheehy came in to replace Godley with John Griffin dropping back to wing-back in his place. " We missed Tweaky's dynamism at midfield and he went in there from the start of the second half," he said.

"We've still tweaking and twisting. The backs looked solid, the full-back line with Andrew Keane, Aidan Healy and Colin Harris. Very solid, under one on one balls when they had to defend. [ Tom] Murnane is coming into his own, Liam Boyle is bringing stability. [Michael] Conway is going well at midfield and he's improving every game. He got a super point, he's a class act," he enthused.

With Kerry having scored 3-13 and 1-18 in their first two games respectively the Kerry manager is pleased wtih how his forwards are shaping up and especially how his younger stars are adapting to inter-county hurling. " We had a great performance from Darragh [O'Connell] in Derry and Shane [Nolan] in Mayo.

"Then Dooley and everyone else i s chipping i n with the odd score – I mean 118 and 313 over the two days, I was delighted with those. We're putting up the scores and that's important. You'd be looking for 2-20 / 2-21 on a better surface," he said.

With a challenge game arranged for those who didn't play the first two games this weekend, the Kerry boss will be hoping to broaden his options further. With Armagh up next in two weeks time in Tralee the We x f o r d native could be on the cusp of blooding yet more young talent.

- Damian Stack