HURLING ON THE first week of January means more to Kerry than just about any other county.
While their opponents may consider the games trivial, it’s the only time of year Kerry get to play opponents from within a 200km drive of their northern hurling heartlands.
For their development, too, selector Pat Bennett says: “We want to get the hammerings”.
Not that it’s been all trimmings in their years contesting the Co-Op Superstores Munster Hurling League. They beat Tipperary (or Tipperary’s “third team”, as they’re described) last January, even if Limerick did nail 30 points into them the following week, and they downed Cork in 2018.
Of Kerry’s contemporaries, Laois, Westmeath, and Antrim are Division 1 hurling this year. As many more have been there in recent years. Hurling’s southwestern outpost is desperate to reach such heady heights, even if it’s to get those hammerings in finer weather and on firmer sod.
It’s part of a longer development journey but what that means right now is they have to be ready for road, at full championship steam ahead, by mid-January.
“This competition is more important to Kerry than it is to any of the other five counties,” says Bennett, a veteran of Championship campaigns with Waterford and Wexford under Davy Fitzgerald and now working with Stephen Molumphy.
“Kerry have the disadvantage of being where they are. It’s six hours up to Derry. You have to head off on a Friday for a match on a Saturday and get back home and into recovery. Wherever they are, they have to go and stay overnight. It’s just so different.
“I see with Waterford in the last three years, they went away once. We went away seven times with Kerry last year.
“It’s just so hard to deal with the geography of where you have to get to. Away to Down, you are in Belfast, then you have another hour in the morning to get back down to play them, then go back home again.
“It’s just very hard. That is why this competition is so important for us compared to the other five counties.”
Bennett is full of praise for the Kerry County Board in funding their travels – “They give us such respect, the exact same as the football” – but insists his team now needs to earn their promotions on the pitch.
The turnover of players is another challenge on that front.
“For us to get into Munster, where we want to be, we have to win a Joe McDonagh. No one will give it to us.
“People say, this is your third Joe McDonagh (Kerry have lost the last three finals in a row). It’s not. We spoke to the panel there last week. Out of the panel of 44, only six of them played the three Joe McDonaghs. If you want to go to two Joe McDonaghs, there is only eight or 11 played. Out of a panel of 44, that is only a quarter.
“This is a whole new job. A new season starting for us for these guys to win a Joe McDonagh.”
The promotion politics have been adjusted so if Kerry do get over the line, they’ll compete as Munster’s sixth county. No play-off required. No playing in a Leinster preliminary group as Kerry did in 2016 and ’17.
“To me, it is a no-brainer. Kerry is in Munster. Why would you want to go and play with Leinster? I didn’t get that. We always wanted to play in Munster but we’re not at that level. How are you going to get to that level? By going up and playing them. You are going to get your trimmings but you have to play them.
“We played Wexford in the Liam MacCarthy last year, the first time in 17 years they played. The boys absolutely loved it. We got bet but the boys loved it. [Fionán] Mackessy and the boys were saying, this is where we want to be. These are the teams we want to play. 4,500 below in Austin Stacks. That is how you are going to do it and build it.
“These guys are passionate. They work as hard as any of the other inter-county teams, they train as hard. They do everything. It’s just to get over the line, that’s what they have to do.”
Kerry have to close the gaps down the grades too, not just at senior. Molumphy, Bennett, and co. have taken training sessions with the U20s and minors already this season. In previous years, they wouldn’t start their preparations until February or March.
“If you look at an under-17 footballer in Kerry and an under-17 hurler, totally different. Because the strength and conditioning is there in football and not in hurling. We are bringing that into the equation.
“As well as now we are looking five years down the line.
“The minors we had the other night, their stickwork is brilliant. Physically, they are just like 14-year-olds compared to the other counties. That is the level they have to get up.”
Spreading the game inland from the coastal parishes of North Kerry is another challenge but one showing signs of progress. Among the senior squad are players from Kenmare, Killarney, and South Kerry. Of the 45 on the panel, Bennett believes 17 are from beyond the North Kerry boundaries, some driving an hour and a half to training.
Last year, Bennett rang 10 players and not one would commit to the Kerry hurling squad. This year, Bennett rang 22 and 21 jumped on board. That represents progress. Hope. The other, dual All-Ireland minor winner Barry Mahony, has opted for Jack O’Connor’s footballers.
“We get it. We come from Waterford. We have the opposite from football to hurling. We get guys who come in. Barry is a very good footballer. We get it. Robert Monahan is a really good footballer. He decided to go in with the U20s. I talked to Tomás [Ó Sé] a couple of times, hoping the 20s could play both, hurling and football, but it does not happen in Kerry. Make a decision.
“In Waterford, you can play hurling and play football as well. There is an understanding. In Kerry, you do the football or the hurling. I think we had five guys who went from our panel into the U20 football. But I really don’t mind as long as they are playing something.
“Are we gutted? We are. You’d love to have the best team available. We always said, the team is there; they fight for it and earn it.”
They’ll need plenty of fight for their group games in the coming week. Cork, then Limerick.
“If you are playing the Corks and the Waterfords, the Limericks, Clare and Tipp, then you are going to get better. That is the whole idea.
“In fairness, we have Cork and Limerick. You can’t ask for much harder than that. That is what we have to go against. They come with whatever team, we have to be ready and have to perform. We have to be up at that level.
“Cork will come and they know what happened to Tipp last year. It’s not about respect or anything like that, all of a sudden they are saying we need to go down there and win this. They are going to come with a decent team to beat us and that is what we want. We want to get the hammerings.”
The hope is if they get enough of them, they won’t have to endure those hammerings much longer.