AFTER BEGINNING THEIR league campaign with an impressive win over Donegal in Ballybofey, Kerry’s form has stalled.
Eamonn Fitzmaurice’s side have been beaten by Mayo and Monaghan in successive league games, leaving them in a precarious position near the foot of the table.
Next weekend’s trip to Dr Hyde Park to face Roscommon is an important one. Fail to win that and Kerry will find themselves in a fight for survival.
Glancing over their shoulders at the trap door is familiar territory for Kerry, who typically wait until the ground hardens and the evenings get longer before they start producing the sort of slick football they’re famous for.
But after running up 2-17 in that league opener against Rory Gallagher’s men, Kerry have scored just 1-10 in each of their last two games.
While those tallies won’t worry Fitzmaurice too much in February, there are a number of statistics that might be a cause for concern.
In the last 15 minutes of their previous three games, inclusive of added time, Kerry have scored just 0-2 in total.
Against Monaghan yesterday, the Munster champions failed to score from play in the second-half, while Paul Murphy was the only forward to hit the target from play in the entire game.
Kerry’s attack thrives on quick, direct kick-passing into the full-forward line, but the Monaghan defence clogged up the passing lanes last Sunday and forced Kerry to run the ball.
Although they won plenty of scoreable frees from the running game, with James O’Donoghue, Paul Geaney, Barry John Keane and Brendan Kealy chipping in with eight frees between them, Monaghan’s defensive structure robbed the home side of their most valuable asset – their kick-passing.
Kerry’s half-backs didn’t look all that comfortable carrying the ball forward, with both Tadhg Morley and Peter Crowley caught in possession around the middle third. Both of those resulted in Monaghan goals.
Below Crowley coughs up possession and Gavin Doogan takes full advantage by starting and finishing the move.
Although a wind-assisted Kerry created a couple of goal chances in the opening half, they struggled to get their most dangerous forwards on the ball during the game.
Eamonn Fitzmaurice admitted as much afterwards.
“It was worrying at half-time because there was a strong breeze there, but we train here so often and we know the place so well that we figured we would be able to battle away against it but we probably did not score enough in the first half,” he said after the game.
“We had chances and we did not take them and Monaghan worked very hard in the first half. Both goals probably came at crucial times for them when we were on top. Look, we just did not score enough basically,”said Fitzmaurice.
The difficult conditions also made it a day for defenders and Bryan Sheehan’s red card, withing seconds of coming on, didn’t help matters for the home side.
Here’s the scores their forwards have put up so far:
It’s important to note that Fitzmaurice has handed out opportunities to plenty of youngsters in attack in the spring.
Jack Savage, Conor Keane, Kevin McCarthy and Adrian Spillane have all made their first league starts in recent weeks, while injury forced Paul Geaney off against Mayo after 19 minutes, and ruled James O’Donoghue out of the same game.
Colm Cooper (who’ll decide on his inter-county future after St Patrick’s Day), Johnny Buckley and, up until recently, Darran O’Sullivan have all been club-tied, so it’s hardly time for the alarm bells to sound in the Kingdom.
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