Kieran Donaghy is leaning against a low wall at Hyde Park explaining Armagh’s loss to Roscommon when suddenly the conversation goes south – to Kerry.
The previous night, the Kingdom suffered a seven-point hammering in Castlebar. Mayo’s victory had been far more comprehensive than the scoreline indicated and, when Kerry ship losses like that, well, there is no place to hide. The people want to know. What’s going on?
“To be honest, I didn’t see it, I had my own basketball game, so I was otherwise engaged,” smiles Donaghy.
But surely you heard the result?
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“Yeah, I heard the result, they’ll take a bit of flak around Kerry this week and I’m sure they will be very much waiting for Saturday night for a chance at redemption and we’ll have to be ready for that too.”
Donaghy’s involvement with Armagh adds an extra layer of interest to Saturday’s clash, Star of course being a son of Tralee and a hero of Kerry. The Kerry folk look upon his work in Armagh as an apprenticeship, learning on the job, before one day taking the reins in his homeland.
This, of course, is the time of the season for apprenticeships to be offered. Jack O’Connor has given several players their shot over the last few weeks but the jury is out as to who will be kept on for the busy summer months.
And while there were some furrowed brows in Kerry at the manner of the defeat to Mayo, there is certainly no panic.
Losing two of your first three league games the season after lifting Sam Maguire is not exactly untrodden ground.
Only once in the last five years have the reigning All-Ireland champions managed to win more than one of their opening three league matches the following season – Dublin in 2020 started with two wins and one draw.
Indeed, on the last seven occasions they won the All-Ireland, Kerry have lost their opening league game the following season. You have to go back to October 1997, when they beat Kildare in the league, a game played just weeks after the All-Ireland final.
Kerry lost to Donegal in round one of the league this year, in 2015 it was Mayo, Dublin in 2010, Donegal in 2008, Mayo in 2007 and Cork in 2005. They lost to Louth in October 2000, with the 2000-01 league format starting pre-Christmas.
Kerry actually lost their first four league games in that campaign and were relegated. Despite losing two of their first three games, there is little danger of such an outcome this term.
Their preseason wasn’t as extensive as others, so Kerry will get fitter over the coming weeks and as more players return they will also continue to get stronger.
O’Connor has used 24 players so far, nine of whom were not part of Kerry’s All-Ireland final match-day panel last year. A dozen players have started all three league matches.
Up front, there have been decent showings made by the likes of Donal O’Sullivan and Darragh Roche but, clearly, without David Clifford and Seán O’Shea the Kerry attack is a weaker proposition. The latter duo did appear as substitutes in the second half against Mayo to telling effect. The return of Paul Geaney will also bolster Kerry’s inside line.
However, the area of most concern remains midfield. Only later in the year will we know the impact of David Moran’s retirement. Jack Barry and Barry O’Sullivan have been the preferred pairing in the league so far. Diarmuid O’Connor is currently out with an ankle injury but when he returns it is thought Kerry’s midfield duo will be Barry and O’Connor.
Joe O’Connor is out for the season with a cruciate injury and while Stefan Okunbor has featured in all three league games, it appears Kerry are still trying to figure out his best position.
Kerry essentially played with an extra midfielder last year with Moran, Barry and Diarmuid O’Connor operating in that middle third sector. Adrian Spillane could perhaps fill a similar role in 2023, nominally from wing forward, with Barry and O’Connor at midfield.
The potential remains for O’Shea to slot in at midfield too, but it is clear his most devastating position for Kerry is operating from centre forward.
They enter Saturday’s game on the back of a fairly chastening experience in Castlebar.
“There is so much learning you can take from every game, no matter if it goes well for you, if it doesn’t go well, both on an individual level but as a collective more importantly, there is so much learning from each game in the league,” said O’Shea at an Allianz event last week.
“This is what happened, we encountered that before, how did we deal with it? What can we do better the next time.”
Armagh might be about to find out.
