When Cork beat Kerry by eight points in the 2009 replayed Munster semi-final, the dam finally appeared to have burst. Comparisons were made with 1987, when Cork’s victory in the replayed Munster final signalled an end to Kerry’s golden years and heralded a new beginning for Cork football, which saw the county win seven Munster titles and two All-Irelands in nine years.
Before that crusade was launched in 1987, there was a sustainable cockiness about Cork football after a generation of players had grown up beating Kerry when winning seven of the previous eight Munster U21 titles. By 2009, the trends were comparable because Cork had won five of the previous six provincial U21 titles. To underline that dominance, Cork whacked Kerry in the 2009 Munster U21 semi-final by 11 points.
Cork did win their senior All-Ireland in 2010 but their anticipated domination of Kerry never materialised because Kerry beat them in the 2009 All-Ireland final and the 2010 Munster semi-final replay. When Cork annihilated Kerry by 22 points in last year’s Munster U21 final — Kerry’s biggest football championship defeat — it seemed to represent another major levee breach from the impending Cork tide. Yet Kerry showed no signs of any cracks when beating them in the Munster senior final.
“After losing so many players after 2009, you’re thinking, ‘There has to be major transition now,’” says Dara O Cinnéide, a member of the Kerry team for a decade from 1995. “The result against Down in 2010 would appear to have borne that out. But then Kerry come back and should have won an All-Ireland last year and you’re asking yourself, ‘How did they do that? I’m amazed but Kerry are renewing before our eyes again.”
The manner in which they lost last year’s All-Ireland final to Dublin left Kerry with plenty of questions to answer. “The 2009 team was a super side and that was our peak,” says selector Ger O’Keeffe. “Last year’s side was limited and in the last 15 minutes of the All-Ireland final, we didn’t have the players to put in when we needed fresh legs.” Regenerating a mature and decorated squad was going to be even harder with the dearth of underage success but Barry John Keane, Brian McGuire, Peter Crowley, Shane Enright, Patrick Curtin and James O’Donoghue have all impressed this spring. “We’ve been delighted with the new guys,” says O’Keeffe. “There’s a great attitude among them and they’re mad to learn. On paper, Cork look like they have better young players but that doesn’t necessarily always mean anything because it’s such a panel dominated game now.”
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Kerry success over the last decade has been defined by their ability to adapt and evolve. During that time, they have lost some of the greatest players of their era but they’ve still kept winning.
Kerry will always produce quality footballers but new players still grow quickly from being hot-housed from a training environment dominated by some of the game’s best footballers.
Management also have an eye for talent. And a knack for developing it. “Jack (O’Connor) has to take a lot of credit in that he just seems to know how to get the most out of players,” says O Cinnéide. “Peter Crowley and Brian McGuire are not the best players in their clubs. But they have well-defined roles in the team and Jack is very much into the team and players fitting in rather than tolerating and indulging talents.”
Kerry produced one outstanding forward in every season between 2002-2008 and while that supply has dried up, Kerry are still producing skilful and talented forwards. Lack of underage success is even more irrelevant with the number of players still coming through.
Kerry did win the 2008 All-Ireland U21 title but 12 of the players which featured against Donegal last weekend had tasted defeat at U21 level over the last six years, mostly at the hands of Cork.
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A comparison between the benches for last year’s Munster final also challenged the assertion of Cork’s supposed superior depth of talent. Kerry had Michéal Quirke, Seamus Scanlon, Daniel Bohane, Padraig Reidy and Barry John Keane in reserve, while they also had Paul Galvin and Tomás O Sé to return. Colm O’Neill was injured and while Cork had some good players to come in, they still had nobody who could make a big impact.
There is still a strong feeling in Cork that a takeover is inevitable. Part of that is based on the theory that when Kerry’s nucleus of great players retires, the players coming after them won’t have that same inner-belief or mental strength. And that Cork will then wash them back on the rocks.
“A lot of that comes down to staggering the departures,” says O Cinnéide. “All of a sudden then, leaders are emerging again underneath them. The success is not going to last forever. But you’d hope that the culture will.”
The Cork tide may be coming. But it’s going to take more to break the dam this time around.