THE stats men, nutritionists, trainers and psychologists all did their jobs but it took a few old-fashioned “yahoos” from manager Jack O’Connor to drive Kerry to the Sam Maguire yesterday.
Trailing by a point at the break against a Galway side that was playing with confidence and fluency, O’Connor said his team needed “a bit of a jolt” and whatever he said worked as the Kingdom moved through the gears in a final that lived up to its billing and won their first All-Ireland since 2014.
“I was quite animated myself at half-time,” said O’Connor.
“I felt that we weren’t playing to our potential out there. There were players who had more to give. “We’ve always been pretty composed in the dressing room at half-time but I think today was one where we needed a bit of a jolt and we left a couple of yahoos alright.”
O’Connor celebrated his fourth All-Ireland victory yesterday (all four have come the year after Tyrone won the Sam Maguire) and he hopes the victory is a sign that the players from Kerry’s five in-a-row minor-winning (2014-2018) sides have now come of age at senior level.
“It’s about that group of lads,” he said.
“We’ve been trying to put them together since 2014. I finished up with the seniors in 2012 because we knew that a new group needed to come.
“The great team from 2004-2009 had come to an end here 11 years ago, I suppose Stephen Cluxton put an end to them.
“We knew that a new group had to be developed and that began in 2014. We didn’t think today would take eight years to come but this is the five in-a-row minors really coming through today and we’re just hoping it is the start of something good.”
Dromid Pearse’s clubman O’Connor said the four-point success against a Galway side that gave as good as they got for an hour until Kerry finally pulled away was the sweetest of his quartet of Sam Maguire wins.
“They’re the best ones of all,” he said.
“This was never going to be an easy game. We never took Galway lightly and I thought Galway played very, very well.
“Maybe the tag of favouritism rested heavily on our fellas’ shoulders, particularly in the first half I thought we were very jiggy and not composed on the ball.
“I think we had seven wides kicked before Galway registered a wide. So they looked like they were nailing everything down into the Hill 16 end, and we were very wasteful up the other end.
“In general play I thought we were doing ok. We were turning Galway over and we were doing very well on the Galway kick-out. I just thought we were lacking composure and just needed to be more clinical and that was the message at half-time.”
In a game punctuated with spectacular scores from David Clifford on one side and Shane Walsh on the other, there were few goal chances.
Yesterday’s victory completed a clean sweep of McGrath Cup, National League, Munster Championship and Sam Maguire for Kerry and O’Connor said his team’s watertight defence was the reason they had moved from the chasing pack to top dogs.
“Look, you have to say that the big difference this year is that we haven’t been conceding goals,” he said.
“It took a wonder goal from Cormac Costello to breach us against Dublin. That was the only goal we conceded in the Championship. We conceded two in the League so any day that a Kerry team does not concede goals you have a great chance.”
