SPORT O’Connor insists Kerry are no one-man band

Star forward David Clifford was exceptional yet again as Kerry defeated Louth on Sunday but his manager Jack O’Connor says his side’s satisfying victory was very much a team effort.

Clifford scored 2-4 in Portlaoise as Kerry ran out 5-24 to 0-11 winners but speaking post-match, O’Connor was quick to praise several other players who made valuable contributions.

“The beauty of today was we got a lot of fellas chipping in,” the veteran bainisteoir said. “Tony [Brosnan] was very lively. Diarmuid O’Connor had a huge first half. Seánie O’Shea was very good. Paudie [Clifford] was very good. We got scores from different areas and that always takes the heat off David.

“You know, the narrative is out there that we’re a one-man band but we think we have threats from a lot of areas.”

The Dromid native was especially pleased with the manner in which his side dealt with Louth’s defensive set-up, a set-up which caused problems for Cork and Mayo in the previous rounds.

“Louth will be disappointed with the way they performed but we felt we were going well in training during the week. We felt we were getting more and more comfortable against those packed defences and that’s the key to football nowadays. You have to be expecting that teams will pack the defence and you have to keep the ball moving and just have width and depth in your attack. And I thought we did that well.

“Diarmuid O’Connor kicked three points from outside the cover and that always helps because it draws them out.”

Kerry supporters left O’Moore Park in agreement that they had just seen the team’s best performance of the year to date. O’Connor was of the same mind.

“Ah it [was], yeah. Look, we have been patchy and we know there are bigger tests ahead, but it has to be good for the confidence to put together a performance like that.”

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Kerry would have taken a spot in the preliminary quarter-finals before throw-in but they actually ended up topping their group thanks in part to Mayo’s threepoint defeat to Cork. The results on the final day mean that the defending champions now have a week off before

DELIGHTED: Kerry manager Jack O'Connor is happy to have earned a week's break before the upcoming All-Ireland quarter-final. Photo: Michael P. Ryan/Sportsfile. We the All-Ireland quarter-finals on July 1/2 while Mayo, Cork and the second- and third-place teams from the other pools are back at it, fighting for their lives, this coming weekend. O’Connor told reporters that he is “delighted” with the way things turned out.

“Two weeks is the ideal amount of time between games. It just gives you time to recover and build back up again, because a week can be just a bit dodgy at times if you have niggles or whatever.

“[So, I’m] delighted with that but I always thought Cork had a good chance in that game. Cork were very good against us and Kevin Walsh would know those Mayo fellas well, so it wasn’t a huge surprise. [It’s a] great bonus for us to finish top of the group.”

The week off is welcome news for Gavin White and Paul Geaney, both of whom sat out the Louth match due to injury.

“Gavin White just picked up a minor calf strain during the week and Paul possibly could have played if a gun was put to his head,” O’Connor explained. “It was just a niggle in his hamstring so we didn’t chance it. We’re hoping that the two weeks will give everybody a chance to recover.”

O’Connor also confirmed that Killian Spillane (ankle ligament) is back running and making good progress, although he is “a bit behind” White and Geaney in his race to be fit for Croke Park.