Welcome to the club: the inside story on how Kerry delivered the All-Ireland no-one expected
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THE FOURS have always been good to me. In 1994 Kerry won a minor All-Ireland and in 2004 we won another senior one. Facing into the 2014 championship very few people outside of our group gave us a chance of success.
Colm Cooper did his cruciate playing with Dr Crokes in February and was out for the season. Paul Galvin, Tomás O Sé and Eoin Brosnan had retired from 2013. We had a topsy turvy league. Winning some great games, as against Tyrone, losing narrowly to Mayo and Dublin and getting hammered by Cork. We had retained our division one status but lacked consistency. That defeat to Cork in Tralee was our final league game and meant we faced into the gap between league and championship very much as outsiders for the Munster Championship. Externally, an All-Ireland assault was not part of the conversation. “Kerry are in transition” was the popular and unimaginative tagline at the time. The results of the matches are in the books but the stories behind those wins not so much. What follows is a peek behind that curtain.
There were a few key moments between league and championship that really helped set us on the right path for the big stuff. Inter alia Declan O’Sullivan’s return post-league was pivotal. Everyone respected him and the younger players worshiped him. His demanding standards immediately elevated the camp. His crankiness meant there was no choice. Secondly, our training camp to Portugal in April was crucial. We worked hard out there but critically the football was physical, bordering on the violent. All of the frustrations associated with our mixed form during the league came flooding out. It was purgative. We all knew we were getting plenty right, on and off the pitch but why wasn’t it transferring to consistent performances? And, ergo, results? We needed the release. We had a couple of feisty no-holds barred meetings at our Amendoeira base. Management challenged players. Players challenged management. Players challenged players. One of the nights the lads went into town and sneaked in a few handy pints. They thought we didn’t know. We were happy to play along. We trusted them not to act the jennet and they didn’t. We returned determined and unified.
During 2013 Cian O’Neill, a selector with us at the time, approached me about doing a bonding day with the Army Ranger wing, where he was well connected. I had never done anything like that as a player and was suspicious and reluctant. We left it. Cian came again in 2014. I was more open minded second time round. The age profile of the squad had changed with a group of new young players now onboard. A bonding day would do us no harm.
It was gruelling, mentally and physically but it did indeed tighten the group even further. Ed Holland and his group of Army Rangers were exceptional. In addition to testing the players' bodies and minds their ultimate aim was to coach how to keep concentration when exhausted. The lads got plenty of practice that morning. In the afternoon we climbed Galtymore. At the top we had a brief chat and I presented each player with a Kerry jersey. There were two jerseys for every position and I presented each one of the lads with the jersey representing the position they were currently occupying or fighting for. To win the All-Ireland we would need at least two players competing for each position, with meritocracy rather than reputation dictating selections. The lads left the jerseys on and ran back down the mountain, a remarkable scene that is still burned into my mind's eye to this day.
In that window, and away from the Kerry scene there was significant satisfaction when Pobalscoil Chorca Dhuibhne won the Hogan Cup in Croke Park. That win was deeply personal and special. It was one of the few times that I was emotional after a match. That group had been on a phenomenal odyssey for the previous five years. Personally, it reinforced my belief in myself and reminded me that I had some clue at what I was at. At half-time in that game, trailing by five, we moved Tom O’Sullivan from corner-back and his marking duties to corner-forward where he had a big influence on deciding matters.
After that Cork hammering at the end of the league, it was no harm to refill that bucket of belief. In the warm-up room after the match I gathered the lads for that private, magical and ephemeral moment where the group have a few minutes together before scattering. When I had finished congratulating them and lauding their efforts I told them I was going to return to Croke Park later in the year and win the All-Ireland with Kerry.
Having defeated Clare in Ennis in the first round of the championship, we were still searching for form. We had a fortnight to the Munster Final. A new Kerry team was emerging with a host of inexperienced players starting and five players getting a championship debut. The training between the semi-final and final was fair, at best. The traditional A v B game the week before the final was a disaster. Or so I thought. The B team beat the A team. This never happened when I was playing and my alarm bells were ringing, which I kept very much to myself. This was a pattern that would repeat itself during the summer. We eventually learned that this was illustrating the genuine strength of the squad and was a huge positive. The day after that A v B game, I attended a month's mind mass for Tina’s aunt’s husband in Curraheen church overlooking Tralee Bay. My mind was full of what we needed to do for Cork the following weekend. Unusually for me, doubts were creeping in. Fr. Zachary from Ghana was co-celebrating the mass and he gave an incredible sermon on the power of perseverance. It was if he was talking directly to me, rather than the packed congregation. Perseverance and a stubbornness were always central attributes of my personality. He reminded me of this. Directly in my eye-line as I focused on Fr Zachary was a little girl wearing a Kerry jersey. Kerry football and religion forever interlinked and intertwined. Sign or not I took it as one. After the mass we went to Joan's, Tina’s aunt, house for a cup of tea. While there one of Tina’s little cousins, Ella, made me a green and gold loom band, that were all the go at the time. I wore it for the rest of the matches that year. As a reminder to persevere and as a piseóg.
As a player I loved playing in Páirc Uí Chaoimh. I loved the pitch, I loved the atmosphere and I had more good days than bad there. The 2014 Munster final was the last to be played there before the old bowl was closed down for redevelopment. Mikey Sheehy had starred as a player when Kerry won the 1976 final on the day of the opening so it would be fitting if we could close it with a win with Mikey still involved, now as a selector.
We travelled to the Fota Island Resort the night before the game, a departure for Kerry teams. We got to spend quality time together but more importantly we had a powerful team. As a visualisation exercise during the 2013 championship the players emailed me the week of a big championship game detailing how they would play the following weekend. For some it was a couple of bullet points, for others it was an essay. The content was incredible. It was amazing how often the specific individual visualisations would come off. During the winter of 2013 I decided that this stuff needed to be shared to energise and empower the entire group. It was too powerful to be left in isolation.
Ahead of the overnight in Fota, I told the lads to think of and visualise three actions linked to their role, that they planned on doing during the game against Cork. On Saturday evening for that meeting everyone shared their visualisations and those specific actions with their team mates, but critically they promised each other to fulfil them the following day. When the meeting wrapped up everyone in that room knew we were going to win. And we did, and won well. One of our big mottos for championship was “Accuracy and discipline puts the opposition under pressure” which slowly but surely was starting to manifest itself in the matches on a consistent basis. The shackles were off and we blew a good Cork team out of the water with strong defence, a dominant midfield and an explosive attacking display. We were starting to gel as a team. The promises were kept. The morning of the Munster Final we were 12/1 to win the All-Ireland. That had changed.
We beat Galway in the All Ireland quarter-final but next came a huge challenge against an experienced and battle-hardened Mayo team. In the first semi-final we were excellent in the first half. Lee Keegan got sent off just before the break and it did us more harm than good. Mayo went for it and we enabled them by retreating into our shell until we were five points down with five to go. Our season was hanging by a thread. But sometimes a thread is enough. We showed massive strength in adversity (one of our mottos from Portugal) and rescued a draw. Big men stood up. Peter Crowley’s breaking ball, David Moran’s delivery, Kieran Donaghy’s catch and James O’Donoghue’s finish. Still one down. Then Kieran O’Leary, our captain, kicked a fantastic clutch point to save us. Draw. Replay. Limerick.
The Gaelic Grounds had everything that Saturday. The day that made our squad. It is hard to quantify how much the victory meant to us as a group of people - management, backroom team and players. And supporters. This was the match that had it all. The novel venue, a raucous atmosphere and an epic game that had everything.
Even before we took to the pitch, we had drama as our dressing room started to flood from a sewer. Some poor plumber sorted the issue while we were doing our warm up. A man had a heart attack in our tunnel shortly before the break and we were told we couldn't go in for half-time. All of our recovery fluids and food was in the dressing room so we had to get in. We got in. The players were oblivious. The man survived. The game itself was incredible. Ferocious. Chaotic. An old school battle of wills.
The intensity and physicality was top of the scale and there was some outstanding football played, by both teams. We showed exceptional resilience and togetherness that day. The entire squad contributed on and off the pitch. Everyone felt part of it. There was no ‘disease of me’. Finally we all backed ourselves, individually and as a group. Now the whole country could see what I saw night-in, night-out in training. It took extra-time to finally get the job done, and we were once more Croke Park bound.
The management team of Mikey Sheehy, Diarmuid Murphy, Cian O’Neill and I overnighted in Adare before heading for Dublin the following morning for the second semi-final. We had a few of the nicest pints I ever drank in Collins’ bar, and for a few satisfying hours the living was easy. Donegal surprised Dublin the following day. As we drove south west we hatched our plan for the final.
Since Donegal had come with their system under Jim McGuinness in 2012 we had struggled to beat them in league and championship. We learned valuable lessons along the way though. Sometimes the lead into an All-Ireland can be tricky. It is vital to keep the intensity of training going north while ensuring that staleness doesn’t set in, that the team doesn’t go over the top and start to regress.
The uniqueness of the Donegal challenge and our approach meant there was no fear of this. We rehearsed breaking down their mass defence and dealing with their counter attacks, repeatedly. Shots from distance could be important and were practised. We placed a major emphasis on the one percenters and their importance in an All-Ireland final, any All-Ireland final. We had special match ups for the day. Aidan O’Mahony on Michael Murphy, Marc Ó Sé on Colm McFadden and Paul Murphy on Ryan McHugh. When Patrick McBrearty would come on as a sub we would be introducing Shane Enright to nail him down. Peter Crowley and Killian Young had vital and very different roles to normal. James O’Donoghue would be roving and creating as opposed to scoring heavily, and this all needed to be synchronised in three weeks.
I went through this individually with all of the lads a good bit out from the game and they had plenty of time to process and practice it. Colm Cooper also made his return at this time. He had been to hell and back since the previous February. He made the squad for the final. He played centre forward on the B team in one of our last bits of football and immediately was creating and pinging those trademark passes around. It gave everyone a lift to see him back. That was the night the man climbed the tree in Killarney to get a glimpse at what we were at. While we laugh about it now if he had seen the un-Kerry like way we were setting up and approaching the final it would have been useful intel for the Donegal camp.
Much of what we were doing was predicated on surprise. That same night Ed Holland from the Army Rangers came down and spoke to the lads, to retrace our steps back to the day we spent at the base of Galtymore and to remind the lads about the importance of concentrating on the matter at hand when fatigued.
In the lead in to Sunday's All-Ireland final, I decided to write each one of the players a letter that would be delivered by Botty O'Callaghan to their room and slipped under the doors while they slept on Saturday night. Every letter was unique to each player. Some contained specifics about the game plan, more details about their own personal story but my absolute complete belief in each individual was detailed in all. A lot of the players have since said to me what this gesture meant to them, which is extremely humbling. Some of them even have them framed in their homes. I’m sure more of them were discarded instantaneously.
Generally I would have the few messages written down that I want to keep hitting on over the course of a match weekend to stay on message and keep banging the drum. But there has to be room for instinct too. As we were getting ready to go out on the pitch one final thought came into my head. I told the players that every one of them was to look the Donegal lads straight in the eye and make strong eye contact as they passed each other when the teams shook hands after meeting the president. It was something I always did as a player. I felt if your direct opponent couldn’t hold the eye contact it set the tone and the terms of engagement straight away. As Fionn Fitzgerald led the players down past the Donegal team every Kerry player stared every man out of it. Plenty of the Donegal fellas blinked and looked away. One-nil.
It wasn’t the perfect performance but it was enough. It wasn’t pretty but we didn’t care. Jolie laide embodied. We were All Ireland champions again. It was a sweet victory for a group that had been underestimated and completely written off, individually and collectively. It was fulfilling.
I took great satisfaction observing the players who won that first, special medal. I took as much pleasure from seeing how happy the old warriors were to be adding to their haul. As I had promised the Pobalscoil lads the previous April, we were back in that warm-up room and we had Sam with us. The rest of the year was magic. Homecoming, celebrations and a team holiday to South Africa. As we saw out the year as a group in Cape Town, Tina had long since christened it ‘Fun 14’, and it was that and so much more.