Jack O’Connor says Kerry remain focused on Munster final despite ‘distraction’ of Sam Maguire Cup draw

The consensus view is that Kerry will retain their title with back to back wins over Clare in the provincial decider, and therefore be ranked as a no.1 seed in whichever group they are assigned to.

The Kerry manager might or might not – privately in any event – allow himself a thought or two on the opposition that awaits Kerry in the Group Stage, working on the assumption that Kerry will be top seeds, but O’Connor admits that the timing of the draw is a distraction for all the provincial finalists.

“Of course it [is], yeah. Purely from a psychological point of view you’d prefer if it wasn’t done until after the weekend, but sure look, the GAA are in the sales game and they want to hype stuff up. But yeah, obviously we’ll look at [the draw] but we’ll be parking it until after the weekend and putting it aside because you can only play one game at a time. We’ll be looking for all our attention to be on the Clare game in Ennis and start thinking about the round robin series then from Monday morning maybe,” O’Connor said.

For O’Connor – who is facing into his 10th Munster final as Kerry manager, and 20 years on since his first – the business at hand is Sunday’s rematch with Clare, almost a year to the day since Kerry’s 5-15 to 0-15 demolition of the Banner in Limerick’s Gaelic Grounds.

This time Kerry go right into the lion’s den – Cusack Park in Ennis – which was decided on a coin toss with Limerick unavailable, and neither finalist hot on the idea of a neutral venue.

“We had no issue really [with the toss]. What’s the alternative? Go to somewhere like Thurles or Pairc Ui Chaoimh, where you won’t get a great crowd from either county, and you don’t have a great atmosphere.

“Our fellas like playing in a good atmosphere, and you’ll get a better atmosphere either in Ennis or Killarney, so it was just one of those things. I think it made sense, and you were going to get a game in the future at home if you lost the toss. It made sense on a lot of fronts,” O’Connor said of a venue he has little experience of.

“I don’t have any big history in Cusack Park. It probably goes back to the days when I was a selector with Páidí Ó Sé that I went up there last with a Kerry senior team. I’m not quite sure what year it was, but it was somewhere in the late 90s. The last time I was up there with the [Kerry] 20s, we got beaten by Galway in an All-Ireland semi-final, so let’s hope for a better result on Sunday.

“I suppose the atmosphere depends on the crowd, and there mightn’t be a huge Kerry crowd there, but I’d say there will be a good Clare crowd there. The way we look at it, we just try to prepare professionally for the game.

“I’m not sure what Clare will bring. Obviously Mark Fitzgerald and James Costello have done a lot of good work with them, they were unlucky not to get promotion this year. A controversial enough decision against Westmeath cost them. Replacing a man like Colm Collins was never going to be easy, but Mark has done a great job there."

Fitzgerald is, of course, a former Kerins O’Rahillys player and manager, but his and O’Connor’s paths didn’t quite cross when the latter was manager of the Strand Road club back in 2008, when he took them to the county SFC final.

“Funny enough, I often said it after, I felt that Mark was a big loss to us [O’Rahillys] that year, he was injured. He had an ankle injury, and it just hadn’t come right for him. I had admired him for a long time, he was a good, intelligent forward, and would have been a loss to us that year.

“He’s done a remarkable job, Limerick’s loss, I suppose, is Clare’s gain, because he’s done a great job with Clare. They’ll be going into Sunday’s game with nothing to lose, and the fact they’re at home, they’ll have a good Clare crowd. You have to remember that it’s only twelve months since they turned Cork over. We will certainly not be treating them lightly.

“From our point of view, we’re trying to get a professional performance from our boys, and tidy up a few things that we were slack in the last day against Cork. That’s the way we’ll look at the game.

“I know we have a few younger lads in the team this year but, in general, we’ve a pretty experienced team at this stage. A good share of our fellas have played in maybe three All-Ireland finals, four if you count a replay, so going up to Ennis shouldn’t faze them.”

Reflecting on Kerry’s “untidy” three-point win over Cork to reach the Munster final, O’Connor spoke of his team being “rusty” and giving up “unforced errors”, which he was happy enough to put down to the team’s four-week lay-off after the League.

“The thing that pleased me was that the lads were able to make that adjustment on the field. Lads kind of realised what was happening, and kind of fixed it themselves.

“The other thing was that we showed a lot of experience and composure in the second half by eking out scores, not turning over ball like they were in the first half. It was just a pretty professional performance in the second half, it wasn’t a fantastic performance, or anything like that, but professional.

“I thought fellas showed their experience, that they had been there before, and were relatively comfortable in a two or three-point game, which is a change for us. Traditionally Kerry haven’t been great in tight games.”

“What is the real Kerry team? A team that blows everyone out of the water? Fellas aren’t making mistakes deliberately, fellas were probably a little bit rusty because they hadn’t had a game for a month. Maybe you’re not giving enough credit to Cork. Cork will do damage in this championship yet.

“I was saying that last year after our game in Pairc Ui Chaoimh, and ye thought I was for the birds, that I was exaggerating. Cork did take a big scalp in Mayo after, so you wouldn’t want to be under-estimating Cork at all, They’re a big athletic team, and they were showing good form late in the league.

“I’m just saying that players never go out to turn over the ball, or to be a bit off, but you have to put into consideration that we hadn’t played a game in a month. Cork had a game two weeks before that.

“From here on in, we would need to be showing a bit of sharpness and a more clinical edge. There are no excuses now. The weather is better, there is a game every two weeks, so you would be expecting that the ball handling and stuff would be better.”

On the player availability from, the Kerry management will select their team from almost a full hand, with Jason Foley back in full training and available to play.

“Brian O Beaglaoich played a game with his club the weekend of the Cork game, as did a few more lads who didn’t get game time. Most of them, along with Jason Foley, are back training. Anyone that’s training, we’ll assess them during the week, there are two more training sessions to go this week, and take it from there.

“Dylan Geaney picked up a bit of a knock in the county league game, he’s just a bit unlucky, but it’s a minor injury. We’ll have a look at him this week, and see how it goes.

"We’ll have a look at them all this week, and just see who you think is ready for action and take it from there. Everyone [involved in the Cork game] seems fine, they had no reaction, so that’s promising."

It remains to be seen if Sunday’s Munster final will be a tight game, but the gap in standard between Kerry and Clare suggests it won’t be.

One year ago David Clifford accepted the Munster cup two days after his mother, Ellen, passed away, with the then and still Footballer of the Year and his brother Paudie showing tremendous courage to honour their mother’s memory by playing in the final.

A day short of the first anniversary of her passing, it seems likely that Paudie, now the Kerry captain, will accept the provincial silverware on behalf of the team.

At that stage, Jack O’Connor, the Clifford brothers et all will know who and what awaits them in the Sam Maguire Cup Group Stage that begins a fortnight later.