All-Ireland SFC Final 2007: A must win game for Kerry
I STILL think Cork could pip them. They are very strong at midfield and Kerry are not going as well in that area just now as they were previously. Then, there is the meanness of the Cork defence who have only conceded an average of ten points per game in this year?s championship. With that kind of record you don?t have to score much at the opposite end to win matches. Generally speaking, if you win the midfield battle you are halfway there and Cork are very strong around the middle of the field while Kerry now have Darragh Ó Sé?s injury to consider?.
These are the words of the former Tyrone great, Frank McGuigan, a shrewd judge of football, whose predictions in the past I have rarely found to be wrong. For instance, he tipped Cork to beat Meath and before the recent semi-final against Dublin he offered the view that Kerry would win, but that ?Cork will win the All-Ireland?.
Nothing that he saw recently on television has caused him to change his mind although he accepts that Kerry have the potential to win well if they hit peak form.Kerry owe an awful lot to Cooper,? he says ?but he wasn?t marked tightly enough the last day?.
Asked to elaborate he offered this opinion. ?The Gooch had a great game and he did everything right. He scored two brilliant points, slowed up the play at times, held up the ball well when he had to, but in my view he wasn?t marked tightly enough. He was given too much space?.
Another opinion from a different source. ?Kerry will have to play as well as they did against Dublin if they are to win the All-Ireland. They may even have to play a bit better than they did on that occasion?.
This is the views of the former Meath manager, Sean Boylan, a man who needs no introduction having mastermined four All-Ireland victories with his native county. The Dunboyne herbalist is in no doubt that ?Cork will have done their homework like they did against Meath? and that Billy Morgan will have his charges fired up for a do-or-die effort.
The Morgan factor was also mentioned by Frank McGuigan. ?I actually thought that Kerry were a bit lucky to have won the Munster final and the fact that Morgan made nothing of the disputed penalty call suggests to me that he had one eye on the qualifiers and that he knew his side could progess along this route just as Kerry did last year?.
Two utterly unbiased opinions coming from long-standing admirers of Kerry football reinforces the view that the hot favourites (1/2 at the bookies with Cork priced at 2/1) have a massive task on hand next Sunday in the All-Ireland final. If even the slightest symptom of complacency has infiltrated the sub-conscious of the Kerry players following their great win over Dublin it will be fatal. Complacency is the hidden rust that can destroy any team and, worst of all, it doesn?t show itself until it is too late. Nobody knows in advance whether it is there or not. Only the game will reveal if any hidden flaws in Kerry?s makeup have been camouflaged up to now.
This is not scare-mongering because it is fact. Kerry peaked against Dublin, but now they have to start all over again and do the same thing three weeks later. What has happened on the training pitch during those three weeks will be very important.
Pat O?Shea and John Sugrue have had a dream season so far, but now they are being put on the spot where they must tweak the pyramid of excellence they achieved against Dublin and repeat the same performance or even exceed it. This is a delicate science and not every manager or trainer can do it. Form, especially among amateur players, is a fickle thing. It can fluctuate sharply and even over the space of a few weeks it can go up or down.
All we know for certain is that the beating of Cork in a unique All-Ireland final setting presents Kerry with a major challenge. Similarly, Cork have to prove themselves in a way that has never been asked of them before. Both sides are very aware of what they have to do. They have met often enough in recent years to know each other inside out. All the evidence would sugest that there is very little between them.
After losing the Munster final by two late points scored by Kieran Donaghy and Sean O?Sullivan, Cork progressed unsteadily. They were very unconvincing at Portlaoise in the qualifiers when beating an average Louth side that had been riven by internal turmoil. Then they struggled to beat a rank bad Sligo outfit in the next round in what proved to be one of the worst games of the season.
None of this augured well for Cork, but then in the semi-final against hotly fancied Meath the Rebels caught fire. They destroyed the opposition in one of the most clinical and compelling displays of the entire championship, winning by 1-16 to 0-9. This was the kind of performance that Billy Morgan always knew was in Cork. This is what has kept him going for the past four years.
Morgan represents the beating heart of Cork?s ferocious intent to come away from Croke Park with the Sam Maguire cup. Essentially he is a straight man who wears his heart on his sleeve. Advancing years have not diluted the raging passion that burns inside him. He still flies off the handle occasionally and he doesn?t trade in pious palaver. He will never be found in a Kerry dressing room after games preaching the gospel of peace and reconciliation or dispensing mealy-mouthed platitudes. He has never made any secret of his antipathy towards the ?old enemy? and one can readily understand why he feels like this having suffered at the hands of Kerry teams both as player and manager for donkey?s years.
But whatever way he feels about Sunday?s opposition the feeling is entirely mutual. The Kerry supporters are desperate to win this game for a lot of reasons, one of them being that they want to put Morgan down and keep him down. That?s tribalism. It?s not pretty, but it?s the way things are between those fiercest of rivals.
Cork will have fire in their bellies and they won?t roll over like the Limerick hurlers did against Kilkenny. They will nail the opposition in any way they can. They will throw the kitchen sink at them. This is a once-off opportunity and they cannot afford to contemplate defeat. But deep down in their inmost hearts they must also be nursing some insecurities because Kerry are not champions for nothing.
In what is a ?must win? game for both sides there are huge incentives that can be thrown into the mix. For Cork, there is the glittering prospect of winning an All-Ireland at the expense of their greatest rivals. They have laboured under Kerry?s shadow for so long that now they have to go straight for the jugular. Quite simply, this is an opportunity the Cork players cannot afford to miss and, for sure, it is one they will not pass up lightly.
For Kerry, the stakes are equally as high if not higher. Pat O?Shea holds the key to becoming the first manager in 17 years to lead his county to successive All-Ireland titles. That would be a tremendous achievement in his first year of office.
Declan O?Sullivan has a private incentive all his own in that he can join the immortals of Kerry football by becoming the first and only Kerry man since Dick Fitzgerald in 1913/14 to captain successive All-Ireland winning sides.
Darragh Ó Sé and Mike Frank Russell both stand on the brink of winning a fifth All-Ireland medal, a truly phenomenal achievement in these days of intense and protracted competition. And so on. There is no shortage of side-shows to the main event.
But it?s what happens within the white lines in Croke Park next Sunday that will count and this is where the age-old question about who wants it more will be played out. Goals scored at either end could be decisive (to date Cork have conceded only one goal in six games). The referee?s performance will be absolutely crucial because a sending-off would be detrimental. A blizzard of yellow cards (as against Dublin) would undermine individual performances and could have serious repercussions.
These are the great imponderables. The real truth is that nobody knows how this game will evolve because there are too many uncertainties, too many doubts, too many reservations. For both sides playing against each other in an All-Ireland final before a full house in Croke Park is uncharted waters. Anything could happen.
The outcome looks poised on a razor?s edge, but perhaps Kerry?s superior attacking power may swing it.
Forecast: A hesitant vote to Kerry.
