AT the semi-final stage of the 2003 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, Kerry’s footballers received a chastening at the hands of Tyrone.
Having just lost out in the previous year’s final to Armagh, 2003 was supposed to be their chance at redemption.
But on a perfect day for football in late August of that year, Eoin Brosnan and his team-mates ran out onto Croke Park only to be confronted by shock and awe.
The game finished 0-13 to 0-6 in favour of Tyrone and has since entered GAA lore as a result of the intensity displayed by a ravenous Red Hand outfit.
Brosnan, a three-time All-Ireland winner with the Kingdom and centre-half forward that afternoon, recalls the occasion well.
“They brought a huge, huge aggression and a ferociousness that we hadn’t expected,” said the Dr Croke’s player.
“In hindsight it was Tyrone’s breakthrough year really. They had obviously had minor and U21 success, but Armagh had been ahead of them in the All-Ireland series at that stage.
“So we hadn’t come across them before. There hadn’t been a huge history of U21 and minor rivalry. There was a brilliant game in 1997 – a replay in Parnell Park at minor level – but there hadn’t been a huge rivalry between the two [counties].”
It wasn’t as if the Kerry team which Brosnan played on was below the level normally expected of the great Kingdom sides either. This was unquestionably a vintage model. The contesting of seven All-Ireland finals from 2002 to 2009 is proof positive of that fact.
But Brosnan readily concedes that coming up against that “fantastic” Tyrone team demonstrated to Kerry footballers and Kerry people that they were not at the level required. He also outlined that before they were beaten in that semi-final, the warning signs should have been apparent in the quarter-final game with Roscommon.
“We were probably unprepared to the level that we should have been,” admitted Brosnan.
“There’s no doubt whatsoever that in that particular game, Tyrone really put a marker down that Kerry football had to change.
“We had to change our level, we had to change our style, we had to change our level of preparation. It was an eye-opener for us.
“There were absolutely no gripes or anything like that. You have to give credit to the talent which that Tyrone team brought. They were a fantastic bunch of players and they really deservedly won.
“We played Roscommon in the quarter-final that year. I remember that particular game. I think we conceded three or four goals that day against Roscommon. It probably should have been more of an eye opener.
“It showed that there were certainly defensive deficiencies which obviously weren’t shored up and which weren’t adequately addressed because we were well beaten on the day in question.”
Current Kerry boss Eamonn Fitzmaurice also played that day and Brosnan is full of admiration for his former team-mate. He is also certain that the lessons of 2003 have been absorbed and that the Kerry team which runs out at Croke Park this Sunday will have been as prepared as it is possible to be.
“Obviously, they’ve a closed door policy in training so it’s very hard to know what’s going on, but I have no doubt that the team that takes the field the next day will have been really, really tested inside in training regarding the tactics that I suppose everyone at this stage knows Tyrone will bring to the table,” said Brosnan.
“When Kerry played Donegal in last year’s All-Ireland final, the number of weeks training beforehand would have been completely and utterly geared towards the way that Donegal were going to set up and I’m sure that Kerry and Eamonn Fitzmaurice have done something very similar in training.
“Certainly Eamonn Fitzmaurice will leave no stone unturned facing this Tyrone team. Every player will know each of their opposite numbers intimately.”
Brosnan’s view is that, like last year’s decider, Sunday’s game may not be much of a spectacle, but he is adamant that this will be of little concern to Fitzmaurice.
“The Kerry management – they couldn’t care less whether [last year] was a bad spectacle or not. When you’re at that elite level, you’re not there to entertain – you’re there to win and it’s win-at-all-costs. It’s a Championship game – if you lose, you’re out.
“As a player, as part of the panel, you’re going to do everything to get that extra inch to get yourself over the line.
“I know there would have been a lot of stuff written about it [the 2003 game] afterwards. It didn’t really affect me personally or it didn’t affect the camp. It just showed that we needed to bring something else to our game.”
As for the current Tyrone team, the Killarney man feels the county probably does not possess the same quality of player as they did in 2003, but does nevertheless admire their admirable workrate and the honesty with which they play.
“Watching Tyrone, they probably do not have the same individual calibre of player who would have been on the team in the, say ’03 to ’08 or thereabouts, but they are working very, very hard for each other,” he insisted.
“There seems to be huge honesty to their game and they are going down to play to their strengths, which are that they are going to sweep players behind the ball, tackle ferociously then break and try to pick off scores.”
Last time out, his own county rifled seven goals past a hapless Kildare and won pulling up. For Brosnan, although they are not perhaps as good as that result suggests, they are still “a very, very good side.”
“No I don’t think that they would be as good as that,” continued Brosnan.
“But there’s also a fierce honesty in that Kerry team and obviously things clicked really in the second half on that particular day [against Kildare] but that’s not going to happen every day of the week.
“They are not going to be getting that much space against the Tyrone defence. Kildare just fell to pieces that day – it was one of those days for them.
“Kerry are a very, very good side, they have proved that. They are reigning All-Ireland champions, they are reigning Munster champions so they are not a flash in the pan and they are into the last four of the Championship.
“I wouldn’t say it is going to be a good spectacle, but it is going to be probably like last year’s All-Ireland final – very tactical and very intriguing. Every fella would love an open game, but that’s not going to happen in reality.”
