AS IT WAS in the beginning, it may also have been at the end.
If there is a moment in time when Kerry decided to take the Keys to the Kingdom and thrust them into Jack O’Connor’s hands, it was almost certainly that iconic passage of play in the 2003 semi-final, when all of Tyrone swallowed up Dara Ó Cinnéide and Eoin Brosnan.
As Pat Spillane reached for his sick bucket in the RTÉ Studio, the Kerry board reached for Jack’s number in the belief that a new way was needed.
Last Sunday, there may not have been such a visceral sense of Kerry drowning in a game they could not comprehend, but there was one when the penny dropped that the terms of engagement had been changed to one which left them feeling like the hunted rather than the hunters of a 40th All-Ireland title.
Kerry's Shane Murphy is challenged by Mayo's Diarmuid O'Connor. James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
In the 26th minute, Shane Murphy went short out the Hogan Stand side to Jason Foley, whose way was blocked, and he transferred backwards to Dylan Casey, who was instantly smothered by Ryan O’Donoghue and as a result coughed up a scoreable free.
It was the second time the Kerry goalkeeper had gone short and on the first occasion it was Paul Murphy who got the O’Donoghue treatment, but the veteran Kerry defender was bailed out by a generous whistle from Martin McNally.
Another 1-7 would follow that first score off a Kerry turnover, but just as important as points scored, their aggression became the all-important first line of defence that squeezed the Kingdom’s vaunted attack almost dry.
What they did not turn over up the field, they either slowed down or stopped by conceding a foul, ensuring that the risk of leaving themselves open to having their high press breached was all but negated.
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For all the talk of Paddy Tally’s knowledge of the Kerry players from his three seasons as O’Connor’s coach, there were times when it felt more like he tapped into the first time he had eyeballed Paidi Ó Sé’s Kingdom in championship, when he stood alongside Mickey Harte in that semi-final 23 years ago.
The swarm might not have been as obvious, but the guiding principle was the exact same – hit every green and gold shirt that moved and give them no time to either breathe or think.
Kerry's Paul Murphy is challenged by Mayo's Ryan O'Donoghue and Jordan Flynn. James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
Kerry have lost more often than they won in Croke Park since that semi-final, but not with that sense of bewilderment which enveloped them for the final 45 minutes on Sunday.
For all the pre-final talk of changes of jersey, it felt in the second half as Kerry got sucked in and space opened up that it was the team in white that played the kind of football we associate with green and gold.
In one way, you could see this coming. Tyrone went a long way down the road in the quarter-final which Mayo travelled in full on Sunday, setting traps, stripping Kerry and cashing it in for scores.
In another way, you couldn’t when you consider how Ger Brennan had been lavished with praise for how he set up Dublin against Kerry in the semi-final, by disengaging when out of possession and dropping inside the arc to slow them down, not unlike Donegal in last year’s final.
Mayo’s way served the new game better: front-foot, high-octane football that stripped it back to the bare fundamentals: tackle without the ball, scavenge when it is there to be won, and when you have it, kick it at the posts when you get a chance.
In the process, they made a mockery of the accountants who scrutinise kick-out retention, heat maps and shot execution percentages.
Try telling a Mayo supporter on Sunday evening their shot execution rate – four two-pointers out of 14 attempts – was appalling, and they might just have had one more shot by kicking you too.
If last year’s All-Ireland final win by Kerry was significant because it was played under the new rules, Mayo’s, outside the obvious dam-bursting of emotion, may be even more significant in that they shed all the inhibitions that were the legacy of a game that needed life-changing surgery in the first instance.
The legacy of breakthrough All-Ireland winners is that they tend to inspire a whole stable of tribute acts, but, of course, it is very hard to imitate the original because you have to have the players to do it.
But on the flip side, once the dial is moved, you have to move with it.
That raises the bar for everyone else next season, not least for Kerry.
All season, the one word which Jack O’Connor has repeatedly cited when seeking to articulate his concern at his team’s subdued level of performance was “energy”, as in the lack thereof.
That can, in part, be explained as a legacy of an early summer injury list that gave the Kerry dressing room the vibes of an A&E department.
But perhaps, those injuries are also a legacy of a team growing old.
Given a permanent state of transition, there is no starting point to a team but if you had to pick one, 2018 seems as good as any.
That was the first season that there was a rush of graduates from the serial-winning minor teams, headlined by David Clifford and Seanie O’Shea.
David Clifford and Sean O'Shea after Sunday's final. Tom Maher / INPHO
Tom Maher / INPHO / INPHO
In seven of the last nine seasons, they have gone at least as far as the semi-final stage, while latterly, under the split season, key players have regularly been unable to get off the treadmill because of elongated club campaigns.
All play and no rest makes for a busy physio room.
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Allied to that, Kerry’s regular deployment of four midfielders (albeit Diarmuid O’Connor’s injury saw that number fall by one on Sunday), has served Kerry well on kick-outs, but perhaps at the price of a lack of pace around the middle eight.
Mayo winning three knockout games in Croke Park despite losing the kick-outs (although their significant disruption of Kerry’s was critical) does not mean that the restart battle has become redundant, but does suggest what you do without the ball is every bit as important.
Kerry’s preference, understandable given the quality at their disposal, is based on winning ball, holding it and using it as their primary source for scores.
But others will follow where Mayo went on Sunday, and Kerry will have to be ready for that.
Kerry manager Jack O'Connor. INPHO
INPHO
This is not necessarily the end either for O’Connor as Kerry boss or for his team. Jack’s instinct for getting to the core of the issue and coming up with the corrective measure is unrivalled, cementing his legacy as one of the true managerial greats.
He has one year left and whether he takes up that option remains to be seen – but just like in 2003 it will demand the kind of reflection which back in 2004 saw him provide Kerry with the cutting edge physicality of Aidan O’Mahony and Paul Galvin as acknowledgment that if the game had moved, they were moving with it.
Over a winter that will feel far too long, how they do so again will consume him and Kerry too.
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Mayo have raised the football bar; Kerry now must figure out how to respond
AS IT WAS in the beginning, it may also have been at the end.
If there is a moment in time when Kerry decided to take the Keys to the Kingdom and thrust them into Jack O’Connor’s hands, it was almost certainly that iconic passage of play in the 2003 semi-final, when all of Tyrone swallowed up Dara Ó Cinnéide and Eoin Brosnan.
As Pat Spillane reached for his sick bucket in the RTÉ Studio, the Kerry board reached for Jack’s number in the belief that a new way was needed.
Last Sunday, there may not have been such a visceral sense of Kerry drowning in a game they could not comprehend, but there was one when the penny dropped that the terms of engagement had been changed to one which left them feeling like the hunted rather than the hunters of a 40th All-Ireland title.
In the 26th minute, Shane Murphy went short out the Hogan Stand side to Jason Foley, whose way was blocked, and he transferred backwards to Dylan Casey, who was instantly smothered by Ryan O’Donoghue and as a result coughed up a scoreable free.
It was the second time the Kerry goalkeeper had gone short and on the first occasion it was Paul Murphy who got the O’Donoghue treatment, but the veteran Kerry defender was bailed out by a generous whistle from Martin McNally.
Another 1-7 would follow that first score off a Kerry turnover, but just as important as points scored, their aggression became the all-important first line of defence that squeezed the Kingdom’s vaunted attack almost dry.
What they did not turn over up the field, they either slowed down or stopped by conceding a foul, ensuring that the risk of leaving themselves open to having their high press breached was all but negated.
For all the talk of Paddy Tally’s knowledge of the Kerry players from his three seasons as O’Connor’s coach, there were times when it felt more like he tapped into the first time he had eyeballed Paidi Ó Sé’s Kingdom in championship, when he stood alongside Mickey Harte in that semi-final 23 years ago.
The swarm might not have been as obvious, but the guiding principle was the exact same – hit every green and gold shirt that moved and give them no time to either breathe or think.
Kerry have lost more often than they won in Croke Park since that semi-final, but not with that sense of bewilderment which enveloped them for the final 45 minutes on Sunday.
For all the pre-final talk of changes of jersey, it felt in the second half as Kerry got sucked in and space opened up that it was the team in white that played the kind of football we associate with green and gold.
In one way, you could see this coming. Tyrone went a long way down the road in the quarter-final which Mayo travelled in full on Sunday, setting traps, stripping Kerry and cashing it in for scores.
In another way, you couldn’t when you consider how Ger Brennan had been lavished with praise for how he set up Dublin against Kerry in the semi-final, by disengaging when out of possession and dropping inside the arc to slow them down, not unlike Donegal in last year’s final.
Mayo’s way served the new game better: front-foot, high-octane football that stripped it back to the bare fundamentals: tackle without the ball, scavenge when it is there to be won, and when you have it, kick it at the posts when you get a chance.
In the process, they made a mockery of the accountants who scrutinise kick-out retention, heat maps and shot execution percentages.
Try telling a Mayo supporter on Sunday evening their shot execution rate – four two-pointers out of 14 attempts – was appalling, and they might just have had one more shot by kicking you too.
If last year’s All-Ireland final win by Kerry was significant because it was played under the new rules, Mayo’s, outside the obvious dam-bursting of emotion, may be even more significant in that they shed all the inhibitions that were the legacy of a game that needed life-changing surgery in the first instance.
The legacy of breakthrough All-Ireland winners is that they tend to inspire a whole stable of tribute acts, but, of course, it is very hard to imitate the original because you have to have the players to do it.
But on the flip side, once the dial is moved, you have to move with it.
That raises the bar for everyone else next season, not least for Kerry.
All season, the one word which Jack O’Connor has repeatedly cited when seeking to articulate his concern at his team’s subdued level of performance was “energy”, as in the lack thereof.
That can, in part, be explained as a legacy of an early summer injury list that gave the Kerry dressing room the vibes of an A&E department.
But perhaps, those injuries are also a legacy of a team growing old.
Given a permanent state of transition, there is no starting point to a team but if you had to pick one, 2018 seems as good as any.
That was the first season that there was a rush of graduates from the serial-winning minor teams, headlined by David Clifford and Seanie O’Shea.
In seven of the last nine seasons, they have gone at least as far as the semi-final stage, while latterly, under the split season, key players have regularly been unable to get off the treadmill because of elongated club campaigns.
All play and no rest makes for a busy physio room.
Allied to that, Kerry’s regular deployment of four midfielders (albeit Diarmuid O’Connor’s injury saw that number fall by one on Sunday), has served Kerry well on kick-outs, but perhaps at the price of a lack of pace around the middle eight.
Mayo winning three knockout games in Croke Park despite losing the kick-outs (although their significant disruption of Kerry’s was critical) does not mean that the restart battle has become redundant, but does suggest what you do without the ball is every bit as important.
Kerry’s preference, understandable given the quality at their disposal, is based on winning ball, holding it and using it as their primary source for scores.
But others will follow where Mayo went on Sunday, and Kerry will have to be ready for that.
This is not necessarily the end either for O’Connor as Kerry boss or for his team. Jack’s instinct for getting to the core of the issue and coming up with the corrective measure is unrivalled, cementing his legacy as one of the true managerial greats.
He has one year left and whether he takes up that option remains to be seen – but just like in 2003 it will demand the kind of reflection which back in 2004 saw him provide Kerry with the cutting edge physicality of Aidan O’Mahony and Paul Galvin as acknowledgment that if the game had moved, they were moving with it.
Over a winter that will feel far too long, how they do so again will consume him and Kerry too.
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