Championship

Game plans for Championship matches

July 19th, 2011
by Weeshie Fogarty

The dust has finally more or les settled on Kerry's superb and generally unexpected victory over Cork in the recent Munster final. And it must be emphasized that while the majority of the media were going for a Cork win it goes without saying that within the Kerry camp Jack o Connor and his troops were contemplating nothing but victory. The Dromid man always sees the glass half full and throws scorn in the face of those he referred to one time in an interview with me as "energy vipers".  And there are plenty of those around I assure you, however in a county such as Kerry this is to be expected as, and I have often referred to this, I believe Kerry supporters and followers are the shrewdest and most educated and most opinionated you will find anywhere.

Nevertheless in today's game the stakes are so high and the margins between victory and defeat can be so slim that only those within the Kerry squad are really in a position to decide what at the end of the day is best for the team. So when we see positional changes, team line outs, and recognized star players unable to win a place on the team and while all of this gives for great debate on press, radio and the local pub really we haven't got a clue what goes on in those late night selection/team meetings. And that leaves the so called "pundits" grasping for a little bit of inside information that might make the local or national news.

In the run up to every big championship game every eventually must be covered. During my brief period involved with Kerry as a player many moons ago the one abiding memory I have is of the then trainer Jackie Lyne (no such thing as managers then), bringing the players together and laying down the plans for the upcoming game(s). Nothing was left to chance. e.g. Is the injured player fully recovered, big decision here as a hasty return could mean a recurrence of the problem and the player might be out for double the time span? Who are the players on form? Make no mistake about it but form in training will be well discussed by the men in charge. Just before the Cork game a man who as they say would be in the know remarked to me, "Don't be surprised if yer own man from The Legion gets a run, he is showing great form in training". And so it was, James o Donoghue was last sub, number 26 on the programme. He came on won his Munster medal, and all because of his form in training.

The game plan will of course be the main topic and the winning and losing of the match will result in the players sticking rigidly to the system which has been decided on against the opponents. And each and every county will necessitate a different game plan. Who mark's who, will we go for breaking, not fielding the ball at mid field, whose job is it to be there and snap up the breaking ball. Will we go for the long high ball into the full forward line or will we go for the low ball as far as possible. Will we play just two men inside and who will these two be. The kick outs are a huge part of today's game and the goalkeeper will be endeavoring as far as possible to find his own man. We could finish up with a man send off or it could happen the opposition, still more possibilities to be prepared for. Injury or loss of form on the day by some players, weather conditions, being highly disciplined at all times in the face of intimidation.

It goes on and on, the whole thing is highly professional and while Alex Ferguson and his back room men are getting well paid for burning the mid night oil the men in charge of our teams will if they win be the flavor of the month, however defeat and the "energy vipers" will have a field day if defeat is the end result. The best hurlers are always on the ditch. There is one aspect of a game however that even the greatest of managers have no control over and that is, exactly how will the players perform on the day? Connor Counihan must have been stunned as he watched Kerry literally take his side apart in the first half of the final two weeks. His players were literally stuck to the ground. Why? And it happens the best of teams. Who will ever forget Kerrys terribly performance against Meath in Croke Park in 2001 when the Kingdom were hammered 2-14 to 0-4. And the baffling aspect of a performance such as this is the fact that the side line generals rarely if ever see it coming. Davy Fitzgerald and his Waterford hurlers might never fully recover from the ferocious hammering they received from Tipperary in the recent Munster final. Never in his wildest dreams did the manager visualize his team ben beaten by such a massive score.   Now I was closely following the progress of Kerry in training for that Meath game in 2001 and they were simply flying. Then came what was probably the worst performance ever from a Kerry team in modern times. So the morale of the story is, "don't believe everything you see and hear in the run up to those big championship games".  The great uncertainty is one of the magnificent aspects of sport.

Fogra; We extend our deepest sympathy's to the Cotter family on the death last week of Liam one of the truly great men of Kerry football and hurling. I was fortunate to have considered myself a close friend of this exemplary man who was honest, passionate, devoted, straight talking and wonderful company. Two years ago I did a special radio program with Liam on his life and times and as a tribute to his memory you can hear a repeat of this on my Radio Kerry Terrace Talk programme next Monday evening 6-8pm.  It can truly be said of this man from the Churchill club without fear of contradiction that we will never see his likes again.



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