“A grain of rice will tip the scale.”
EVEN if it was in Westmeath he said it, Paidí knew that the difference in winning and not winning has never been all that significant.
This Dublin era would perhaps argue otherwise, but across the first three-quarters of the deciders last September they were as close to losing as they were to winning.
If Paul Geaney’s penalty goes in, if Stephen O’Brien’s shot sneaks under the bar, if he pops that ball up to the far post, if David Moran catches that ball. They’re all the grains of rice.
It is only a matter of when, not if, the minor teams they’re pumping out bear fruit.
But this week, the scales seemed to tip back against them.
It is, according to reports, of their own making. Donie Buckley’s departure from the coaching ticket came as a surprise in its timing, but not in itself.
The rumours around his unhappiness go back to very early in the arranged marriage with Peter Keane.
The story’s gone that he’s been unhappy with the amount of time he’s been given to work with the players on the training field.
Is it that he’s frustrated by not getting what he wants, or that he’s frustrated at the team not getting what they need?
His reputation as an expert in the area of defending, particularly the tackle, suggests that he might have had a case.
“I worked with Donie briefly a couple of years back and genuinely got on really well with him, thought he was a great guy and a brilliant coach,” says Darran O’Sullivan, the county’s All-Ireland winning captain in 2009.
“His trainings were really intense, they were all-go. You can definitely see why teams improve defensively under him, intensity-wise.
“At the same time, if I’m involved with Kerry now and I’m not happy with something, it doesn’t go outside the training ground. I’d be disappointed there are these whispers out there.
“My genuine opinion there is that as good a guy as I think he is, and as good a coach as I think he is, if you’re not happy, keep it to yourself or express it to the rest of the management team. It should not come out.
“There’s a lot of coaches inside there – you have Maurice Fitz, Tommy Griffin, Peter Keane’s the manager but he’s a coach as well. Everybody wants their own time.
“Maybe Donie felt he should have gotten more than he was, but there’s quality coaches in that setup and nobody will get all the time they want. Sometimes you just have to make the most of what you get,” says O’Sullivan, who takes heart that it's happened now rather than in the middle of championship preparations.
The structure of Kerry’s defensive setup didn’t always inspire confidence last summer. Cork might have had six goals in the Munster final. Tyrone could have had them away in the first half of the All-Ireland semi-final, when Cathal McShane danced a jig around them in the space behind an all-at-sea Paul Murphy.
Yet he settled back into the role beautifully in the final, across which Kerry sat deep in the pocket and then sprang into spaces that Dublin haven’t been leaving as bare for a long time.
Buckley’s annual break in America over the winter meant he did none of the early season coaching. It’s perhaps no coincidence that despite sitting second in the table with three wins and a deserved draw with Dublin under them, they have the worst defensive record in Division One after five games, having conceded 6-70.
There are other factors at play too. Since he tore his cruciate on club duty with Laune Rangers at the end of last April, Peter Crowley has been absent from their teamsheet.
“Peter’s the only one that can do the job Peter is doing,” says his former team-mate, O’Sullivan.
“If you look at that team, he’s maybe the only old-school Kerry defender – a fella who loves the physicality, a traditional centre-back stopper.
“He has a lot of experience as well. You take his presence alone out of the heart of the defence, that leaves a gap.”
They are, too, without the very heartbeat of their team in David Moran. Their forwards are disarmed without his ball-winning, ball-playing presence at midfield.
Jack Barry, buoyed by his own performances in the showpieces last year, has bedded down again but the man at his shoulder rotates constantly.
Sean O’Shea has played bits at midfield in the league, most notably in the Dublin game. Defensively, there’s a lot to work on. But with Moran’s career edging towards the light, O’Sullivan believes there’s huge merit in the idea.
“I like the idea of Seanie playing midfield to be honest.
“He wouldn’t have Sheehan’s height but he’s similar in terms of his ability on the floor. Bryan was a brilliant man for the first instinct being head up, kick pass 30 or 40 yards, and he’d come off the person again and kick points. Seanie would have that in his locker.
“I find sometimes on the 40’ he has to work very hard to get on ball and he’s a very honest guy, he’s tackling like mad, and it just seems like an awful lot of work for him there.
“Every run is hard, 50, 60 metre runs to win a ball, then you’ve to turn, look for a pass and then come off a fella again.
“Certain games might suit him to be midfield and other games won’t, but not every run to win a ball is as hard at midfield.
“It would spare his energy and make him even more dangerous, and he’d be able to come late on to moves.”
And then there’s the James O’Donoghue factor. He shot back into the breach with fine displays against Dublin and Galway, and then disappeared again, as has been his eternally frustrating way.
“We’ve seen him in the first two league games, hopefully we’ll see him in the last two. That’s loads, it’s all we need to see him,” says O’Sullivan.
“When James is fit, he’s still one of the top forwards in the country, and I firmly believe that.
“They’re managing him well, there’s no big pressure to play him in all these games. A fit James is going to be huge for Kerry this summer.”
If enough of the grains, Crowley, O’Donoghue, Moran, O’Shea, fall on the right side then the potential weight of Donie Buckley’s departure might be negated.
But for a team whose issues are in defence to rid themselves of a field specialist could well tip the scales over.
